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THE PRESENT JEW3 NOT THE LAWFUL HEIRS OF THE 
ABRAHAMIC WILL. 



LETTERS 



TO A 



MILLENARIAN. 

by rev. a. Williamson, 

Paitoi of the Pr««byUri»a Church of Chester, N , J. 



NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY M. W. DODD, 

CORNER OF PARK ROW AND CITY HALL SQUARE. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852. by 

M. W. DODD, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. 




The Lihp 

of Cov< 2 



EDWARD O. JENKINS, PRENTER, 
114 Nassau Street. 



lttU\ahuii0tt ta t\t |nhr, 



The writer of these letters, when he be- 
gan this investigation, had no thought of 
doing more than, by a familiar correspon- 
dence with a Millenarian friend, to try to 
satisfy his own mind as far as he could in 
relation to the views of Millenarians, and 
he now presents them to the public, rather 
as a matter of inquiry, than as an attempt 
to lead others to adopt the views they con- 
tain ; for he is aware that they diverge, in 
one point at least, so far from the common 
views, even of those who utterly reject the 
Millenarian views, that he can hardly ven- 
ture to believe his own conclusions. And 
yet, after presenting these views to a num- 
ber of friends, and hearing their remarks, 
he cannot get away from those conclusions 
to which he has arrived ; and he now, in ac- 



INTRODUCTION. 



cordance with the expressed wishes of a 
few friends, presents them in this way to 
the public, hoping to draw the attention of 
some more able student of the prophets to 
the distinct question — Who are, at present, 
the recognized seed of Abraham, to whom 
the promises belong ? 

In these letters, the covenant promises of 
God to Abraham and his seed, as explained 
and expounded by the prophets, are viewed 
under the character of a will, or testament, 
as Paul calls it, Heb. 9 : 15-19, in which 
God by covenant promises to bequeath to 
Abraham and his seed rich legacies, to be 
paid over to them in successive generations, 
as these legacies become due according to 
the terms of the will, and it is taken for 
granted, that all the prophetic promises to 
God's covenant people, were included in the 
covenant promises to Abraham, in whom all 
the nations of the earth were to be blessed. 
With this view before the mind, the 
1st. First inquiry which naturally pre- 
sents itself, at this distant period from the 
date of the will, is, who are at present the 
lawful heirs to this will ? And, 



INTRODUCTION. O 

2d. What legacies are still due to these 
heirs ? 

In attempting to find who are at this day, 
the heirs to the Abrahamic will, the writer 
does not take it for granted, that every man 
calling himself a Jew, a descendant of 
Abraham, is consequently an heir, or that 
every uncircumcised person is not. 

And here, it may perhaps as well be 
stated, as any where, that the conclusion to 
which the writer has been led, right or 
wrong, is, that the present people scattered 
over the world, calling themselves Jews, 
have according to their own law, broken 
their covenant with Grod, forfeited their 
claim to being, in a scriptural sense, the 
seed of Abraham and heirs to the promises 
made to him, and are at present no 
more to be considered the covenant people 
of Grod ; because descended from Abraham, 
than the Ishmaelites or the Edomites ; and 
that consequently they are not spoken of as 
the seed of Abraham by any of the Old 
Testament prophets, after the death of 
Christ ; and that there appears, therefore, no 
promise in the Old or New Testament, that 



O INTRODUCTION. 

they will ever return as a nation, either as 
the church, or to the church, or any other 
way, except as individuals in common with 
the Gentiles. 

This result was as unexpected to the 
writer, when he commenced this investiga- 
tion, as it can be to the reader, and yet he 
seems forced to it. 

The following process is adopted : > Be- 
ginning with Abraham, it is found, that 
from the first, only a few of the descendants 
of Abraham were ever counted as heirs, 
only one of Abraham's eight children, and 
only one of Isaac's two. After that there 
were some twenty laws, the penalty of 
which, was exscision from the people of God, 
as heirs, and that Gentile converts became 
heirs. See Ex. 12 : 48. So that when Paul 
says, " they are not all Israel which are of 
Israel," he seems to imply, that even then 
we must apply the terms of the will and 
law, as explained by the inspired writers, 
to determine who were the lawful heirs. 

In[ these short letters, the writer has fol- 
lowed in a very cursory manner the history 
of the seed of Abraham, and by applying 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

the conditions of the will and the law, has 
endeavored to determine who in successive 
ages were the lawful heirs. As stated be- 
fore, from the first, only a few were. At 
first they were dropped, so that in the third 
generation only one sixteenth part were 
counted, fifteen were dropped out of sixteen. 
After this they were cut off for the violations 
of the conditions of the will, as explained 
by Moses — as was the case with the uncir- 
cumcised man-child, and with idolaters. 
So that the ten tribes, when they as a nation, 
set up their golden calves, thereby seem to 
have incurred the penalty of exscision from 
the heirs of promise, and were in conse- 
quence sent captive from Canaan, and that 
without any promise, that the writer has 
discovered, connected with the threatened 
expulsion, that as a nation they would ever 
be brought back, as was the case repeatedly 
when afterward Judah was threatened ; ex- 
cept so far as they fell to, and became one 
with Judah. Here again, ten tribes out of 
twelve were, or appear to be left out of the 
heirs, and the smaller part, to be heirs. 
Then, when we trace the history of Judah, 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

down to the time of Christ, we see them 
again divide into two parties, the smaller, 
as always, following, and the larger rejecting 
Christ, and refusing to hear or obey Him, 
and finally causing Him to be put to death, 
and seem thereby to incur the penalty of 
final exscision from all future connection 
with the people of God, according to the 
law of Moses ; Deut. 18 : 19, as explained 
by Peter, Acts, 3 : 23, in farther proof of 
which they have remained separate now for 
more than 1800 years. The penalty here, 
as explained by Peter, seems as positive as 
that of the uncircumcised man-child, and 
therefore all the heirs that remain after this, 
are to be found in that party that received 
Christ as their Saviour, and obeyed Him as 
their king, and those who fell to him from 
the other Jews, soon after. To these are 
afterwards to be added, as always, such 
Gentile converts as fell to them, however 
many. So that after this, the line of suc- 
cession or heirship is to be found, not in the 
church, as under the old covenant, but only 
in true believers, as foretold by Jer. 31 : 31. 
And that therefore, the present Jews are as 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

essentially Gentile in their true character, 
though descended from Abraham, as any of 
the descendants of Ishmael or Esau, and 
have no more to expect from the promises 
made to Abraham ; and that the church has 
no more cause to seek for, and expect their 
conversion, than that of any other people ; 
and beyond that, it seems more than inti- 
mated, that these scattered Jews as a nation 
will never be converted, nor amalgamated 
with other nations, except a few of them, 
but will always, as now, stand out, in every 
nation where the Bible is read, as beacons 
of warning to them of the fearful conse- 
quence of rejecting Christ, calling him an 
impostor, and trampling on his blood. 

These views seem corroborated by the 
teachings of Christ and his apostles, and by 
the fact, that no prophet of the Old Testa- 
ment, so far as the writer can discover, 
has ever distinctly taught, that the Jews 
would ever go into captivity after they were 
carried to Babylon, but the contrary ; and 
still less, that the Jews, as Jews, would be 
carried captive by the Romans after the 
final capture and destruction of Jerusalem : 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

nor has he been able to find that they speak 
of them at all, as the seed of Abraham, 
when referring to a period beyond the death 
of Christ. 

Christ seems the only prophet, who dis- 
tinctly speaks of their dispersion after his 
death, and he certainly does not tell us 
plainly, (nor do any of the New Testament 
writers, all of whom were Jews in cove- 
nant,) that those whom He denominates chil- 
dren of their father, the devil, will ever be 
brought back to their own land again, as 
God's covenant people. So that we are led 
to the final conclusion, that the only seed of 
Abraham now remaining, who can claim 
any of the legacies bequeathed to Abraham 
and his seed, are true believers, such as 
those to whom Paul refers, when he says, 
Gal. 3 : 29, " If ye be Christ's, then are ye 
Abraham's seed and heirs, according to the 
promise." "Whether these views are substan- 
tiated by the following letters, the readers 
must determine for themselves when they 
have read them. If they are not, and can- 
not be, the writer is as anxious as any other 
to see where he has been led astray. 



LETTER I. 

Dear Sir : — So far as I have been able to 
understand your views on the general sub- 
ject of millenarianism, they seem to be 
something like this. The promises made 
by the Lord to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, 
and repeated, by the Prophets, included 
great blessings, a small part of which bless- 
ings were received by the Jews when they 
were put in possession of the promised land 
of Canaan ; but that much the larger 
part of these promised blessings are yet in 
reserve for them, and are to be received by 
them when they shall again have been put 
in possession of that land, and the Lord Je- 
sus Christ shall in person reign over them in 
Jerusalem, and be the personal dispenser of 
these promised blessings. 

Or, in plainer terms, that the will of our 
Lord bequeathed by covenant promise to 
Abraham and his seed, or descendants, 



12 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

great riches, temporal and spiritual, to be 
paid over to them in different ages of the 
world, a small part of which was paid 
over to the Israelites in former days, but 
that much the larger part is yet to be paid 
over to them at a future period of their 
history, when they shall again be put in pos- 
session of the land of their fathers, and 
Christ shall in person reign over them there. 
Now, if it be admitted that there are 
legacies yet due to the seed of Abraham 
and heirs of the covenant promises, to be 
paid to them at a future period, then at this 
distant period from the date of that will, 
the first question to be examined seems to 
be, " who are the lawful heirs to these rich 
legacies ? Does it follow that the present 
people scattered over the world claiming to 
be Jews descended from Abraham are cer- 
tainly the lawful heirs, when it is certain 
that a larger number of the descendants of 
Abraham are, or may be still living, who 
are not known under that name V 9 We 
think not. Besides, it is an undoubted fact, 
that a great number of the descendants of 
Abraham forfeited all claim to these cove- 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAIV. 13 

nant promises by the violation of those laws 
the penalty of which was exscision from 
that people, and many others, such as the 
descendants of Ishmael and Esau, were 
never included. The mere fact, therefore, 
that the present nation of the Jews claim 
that name, and all nations agree to let them 
retain it, does not prove that they are the 
heirs to these rich legacies. It often hap- 
pens that a large inheritance descends to a 
female heir, who by marriage has changed 
her name, and so the estate descends to 
persons of another name, while there are 
many relatives of the same name who are 
not in the line of succession, and therefore 
though they have the same name, are not 
heirs of the estate at all. How, then, do we 
know that the present people claiming the 
name of Jews, are the lawful heirs, when 
it is certain that all the descendants of 
Abraham are not heirs ? For the Lord him- 
self said that the son of the bond woman 
should not be heir with the son of the free. 
We think then, that the first question to be 
settled is, who are at this day the recog- 
2 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

nized seed of Abraham and heirs of the 
promises made to Abraham and his seed. 

If a careful examination of this question 
leads to the conclusion that the present 
Jews claiming to be the seed of Abraham, 
have forfeited all claim to those legacies, 
and are therefore not in the line of succes- 
sion, as we are inclined to think it will, 
then it will follow that no promises made to 
Abraham and his seed by the Lord, and re- 
peated by the Prophets, can belong to them, 
and we must look elsewhere for the heirs of 
all the legacies yet due to the seed of Abra- 
ham. 

It has, therefore, appeared to me, that a 
definite answer to the question who are the 
heirs to the unfulfilled prophetic promises 
to Abraham and his seed, would relieve the 
^explanation of the prophecies relating to 
■the Jews of some of their difficulties. If it 
;be found that the Jews, who are scattered 
through the different nations of the world, 
both Israel and Judah, are the heirs of these 
rich legacies, then these prophecies are to 
be explained so as to meet that view. But 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 15 

if, on the contrary, it be found that they 
have, according to the plain law of God, 
forfeited all claim to those promises, and 
that Abraham has other children who have 
not, and are therefore the legitimate heirs 
to these unfulfilled prophetic promises, or 
those rich legacies, then the prophecies must 
be explained to meet that view. 

Now, although an answer to this ques- 
tion has generally been admitted to be given 
in a sufficiently clear manner by the Proph- 
ets themselves, yet it is manifest that the 
different writers on the prophecies relating 
to the Jews have had different, though it 
may be not very definite answers to this 
question before their minds, which has led 
to equally different views, as to the true 
meaning of some of these prophecies. 

The object of the following letters will 
be, as far as possible, to determine who are 
the lawful heirs to these unpaid prophetic 
legacies, and thus to endeavor to open the 
way to a more uniform understanding of 
the Scriptures and the consequent duties 
of the Church to the scattered tribes of 
Israel. 



16 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN". 

In examining the question who are heirs 
to a will, both the law of the land and the 
conditions of the will are to be carefully 
examined. Some time since a report reach- 
ed this country by a letter from England, 
that a man in England by the name of 
Townly had died and left a large estate to 
his heirs, who were in America, and were 
supposed to be in New Jersey. Persons of 
tihat name supposing they were no doubt 
the heirs, collected together and sent to Eng- 
land to learn more about the matter, when 
to their sorrow, they learned that the only 
heir to said deceased was a daughter named 
Mary, who married a man w r hose name was 
Lawrence ; so that, according to the law of 
descent, the heirs were now called by a 
different name, and that therefore no man 
by the name of Townly could now be an 
heir unless by another change in a future 
marriage ; so that though the testator was 
Townly, yet the lawful heirs were not, but 
were called by another name. 

Now, suppose that after this, the condi- 
tions of the will had been found to be, as the 
will was in England, 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 17 

1. That if any of the descendants were 
unbaptized, they were to be cut off* from the 
heirs, and consequently from the inheri- 
tance, and it was found that half of the de- 
scendants were actually unbaptized, would 
not any judge decide that the estate belong- 
ed not to the unbaptized, but wholly to the 
baptized, for so the testator had decreed ? 
But suppose 

2. The will further stated, that if any of 
those who were baptized should not receive 
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper after 
they arrived at the age of twenty years, 
that then they should be cut off from the 
number of his heirs and forfeit their inheri- 
tance. Would not a judge decide again, 
that all over twenty years who could not 
prove that they had received the sacrament, 
though baptized had forfeited their part of the 
inheritance, and that the whole belonged to 
that part of the baptized descendants, who 
could prove that they had received the sac- 
rament ? But suppose 

3. The will stated further, that all who 
did not receive the sacrament from the hand 
of a Presbyterian minister, though they re- 

2* 



18 ^LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

ceived it from ministers of other denomina- 
tions, should forfeit their heirship and be cut 
off, and it was found that many of the bap- 
tized descendants who had received the sac- 
rament of the Lord's Supper, were not in 
connection with the Presbyterian Church, 
and had therefore received the sacrament — 
not from a Presbyterian minister, but from 
others. Would not the judge again be com- 
pelled to decide that all such had forfeited 
their inheritance, and that the whole be- 
longed to the few that had not forfeited their 
heirship by violating the conditions of the 
will of the testator ? I think all will admit 
that the judge must so decide, whether he 
thought the will a good one or not. 

Now must we not follow the same rule 
in examining the will of our Lord and Sa- 
viour in which he has bequeathed rich lega- 
cies to Abraham and his seed ; and if it be 
found that a large part of the descendants 
of Abraham have, by violating the condi- 
tions of that will, forfeited their character 
as heirs, and consequently their inheritance, 
must we not conclude that all that is still 
due of those legacies belongs to that part of 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 19 

the heirs who have not violated the condi- 
tions of the will, by whatever name they 
may be called ? Why is it not as true in 
the latter case as in the former? In this 
conclusion it is thought all will agree. 

In looking over the will of our Lord, 
among many things a little obscure, the 
following seem to be plain in the conditions 
of the will as recorded. 

1. That of the seed of Abraham, the un- 
circumcised man-child shall be cut off. — 
G-en. 17 : 14. 

2. That of the circumcised seed, Isaac 
shall alone be heir. — G-en. 21 : 12. 

3. That of Isaac's seed, Jacob only should 
be heir.— Gen. 27 : 27-29, and 28 : 10-14. 

4. That a proselyte from the Gentiles, 
who was circumcised and partook of the 
Passover and had all his males circumcised, 
was counted an heir as one born in the land. 
See Exodus 12: 48. 

5. That for idolatry and many other 
crimes they were to be cut off from the seed 
of Abraham.— See Ex. 22 : 20, & Lev. 17 : 
9, 10-14, & 18 : 1-29. 

6. That the man who, without a specified 



20 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

reason, should neglect to keep the Passover, 
should be cut off from the people of God, 
the heirs of the inheritance promised to the 
seed of Abraham, &c. — See Num. 9 : 13. 

7. That those of the seed of Abraham as 
before described, who should refuse to hear 
and obey the promised Saviour when he 
should come, should be cut off from the 
people of God, and those only who had not 
been cut off would be counted for the seed 
and heirs of the promises. — See Deut. 18 : 
15-19. Explained more fully, Acts 3: 22, 
23, & Gal. 3: 29. 

Now, if the forementioned conditions of 
the will are plain, and all who have violated 
those conditions, and especially the last, 
have forfeited their claim to their inheri- 
tance, then it seems to follow, that in de- 
termining the question who are the lawful 
heirs to the inheritance promised to the seed 
of Abraham, we must try it by the condi- 
tions therein plainly specified, and especially 
the last, which seems plainest of all, and 
which we think is fully explained by Christ 
and his apostles. 

This conclusion, we think, is not weak- 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 21 

ened by the fact, that when the execution 
of the law was in the hands of. or commit- 
ted to the hands of fallible Jews, the penal- 
ties of the law were often not executed. A 
wrong decision in a lower court is no reason 
why a higher court should not correct it so 
far as it can be corrected. If the Jews 
suffered their laws to be * trampled upon 
when the Lord committed to their hands 
their execution, it is no reason for us to 
suppose that when Christ takes in his own 
hands their execution, that he will suffer 
the conditions of His will to be broken with 
impunity. 

Let us then see if we can determine who 
are now the lawful heirs to the inherit- 
ance promised and yet due to the seed of 
Abraham. 

We shall here take it for granted that all 
the prophetic promises made to the seed of 
Abraham and David, are included in the 
promise made to Abraham, and are only re- 
peated and amplified by the Jewish prophets. 
Yours, &c, A. W. 



LETTER II. 

Dear Sir : — Let us now see if we can 
determine who, at this distant period, are 
the heirs to the Abrahamic will. Since Paul 
says, Rom. 9: 6, " They are not all Israel 
which are of Israel," who then are ? 

When God first called Abraham from his 
father's house, and promised to bless him 
and his posterity, there was nothing in the 
form of the promise as recorded, by which 
he could determine whether all his children 
were to share in the blessings of the pro- 
mise, or only a part of them. The Lord 
simply said, Gen. 12: 2, " I will make of thee 
a great nation, and I will bless thee and 
make thy name great, and thou shalt be a 
blessing," &c. In this general way the pro- 
mise was first made, and, if nothing more 
had been said, we might have been led to 
suppose that all the descendants of Abraham 
were included in this promise. But the his- 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 23 

tory of the event shows that they were not. 
V. 7, we are told that after Abraham and 
Sarah had reached and passed over a part of 
the land of Canaan, M The Lord appeared 
unto Abraham, and said, Unto thy seed will 
I give this land" — namely, the land of Ca- 
naan. Here, again, it would seem as if all 
were included. About four years after this 
we are told, Gren. 13: 14, 16, " the Lord said 
unto Abraham, Lift up now thine eyes, and 
look from the place where thou art, north- 
ward and southward, and eastward and 
westward, for all the land which thou seest 
to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for- 
ever, and I will make thy seed as the dust 
of the earth, so that if a man can number 
the dust of the earth then shall thy seed 
also be numbered." Here, again, there is 
nothing in the form of the promise intimat- 
ing that any of Abraham's children would 
be excluded, still less that persons descend- 
ing from others should be numbered as the 
children or seed of Abraham, and yet the 
history of Abraham seems to imply that 
both events happened, though as yet they 
were not revealed. Ought not this to teach us 



24 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

to be cautious how we build theories on pre- 
dictions? 

Again, G-en. 15: 18, after the Lord had 
informed Abraham that his "seed should cer- 
tainly be a stranger in a strange land, four 
hundred years, " we are told, he " made a 
covenant with Abraham, saying, Unto thy 
seed have I given all this land, from the 
river of Egypt unto the great river Eu- 
phrates." Still, no intimation is recorded 
that any are to be excluded. But, after the 
birth of Isaac, when Sarah complains of the 
conduct of the son of Ishmael, Abraham's 
first born, Gen. 21: 10, 12, the Lord said 
that " The son of the bond woman should not 
be heir with the son of the free woman," and 
that " in Isaac his seed should be called ;" 
and this was confirmed by the fact that 
only the descendants of Isaac went into 
Egypt, where the Lord had declared tha 
seed of Abraham should be in bondage, as 
we shall hereafter see. Again, Gen. 17: 19, 
after God had entered into a formal cove- 
nant with Abraham and his seed, to be their 
God, and to give to them the land of Canaan, 
of which covenant circumcision was to be 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 



25 



the seal ; and, after declaring in the same 
covenant, v. 14, that the uncircumcised 
man-child should be cut off from his peo- 
ple, he says again, " Sarah thy wife shall 
bear thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call 
his name Isaac, and I will establish my 
covenant with him for an everlasting cove- 
nant, and with his seed after him. As for 
Ishmael, I have heard thee ; behold, I have 
blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and 
will multiply him exceedingly, but my cove- 
nant will I establish with Isaac." 

Here it is very manifest that the covenant 
promise was restricted to Isaac alone, who 
was not yet born, and to his seed, though 
Abraham had seven other sons after this, as 
we shall see. So that, from the beginning, 
only a very small part of the natural descend- 
ants of Abraham were actually included 
among the heirs to the bequests of that will, 
which bequeathed such rich legacies to Abra- 
ham and his seed. 

Now, as the general promise of God, to 

give to the seed of Abraham the whole land 

of Canaan, did not prove that all his children 

were included, so the promise to Isaac and 

3 



26 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

his seed may not secure all his, or even prove 
that no others will be admitted. We ask 
then, again, who are the heirs that can, at 
this distant period, lay claim to these rich 
legacies ? Were all those who were circum- 
cised, heirs ? — as those who were not, were to 
be cut off. We think not, for all the males 
in Abraham's house were circumcised. — See 
Gen. 17 : 23. Still this was to be the token 
of the covenant between God and his peoplej 
and the man-child who was uncircumcised 
was to be cut off; while Ishmael, and the 
other six children of Abraham, though chil- 
dren, and circumcised, were, for no crime 
mentioned, to be cast off or not reckoned 
among the people of God : thus showing 
that as yet we have no definite rule by which 
we can determine who are the seed and heirs 
according to the promise, since the great 
mass were dropped, and not counted, and 
only a few counted from the first promulga- 
tion of the promise. After this, in Gen. 22: 
15-18, a little more than twenty years later, 
the Lord renewed the promise to Abraham, 
without any intimation that any of Isaac's 
children were to be excluded. In Gen. 25, 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 27 

we have the account of Abraham's second 
marriage — " Then again Abraham took a 
wife, whose name was Keturah," by whom 
he had six children, none of whom are 
counted among the seed of Abraham, as be- 
fore stated. In Gren. 26 : 24, the promise is 
repeated to Isaac : " And the Lord appeared 
unto him the same night, and said, I am the 
God of Abraham thy father, fear not, for I am 
with thee and will bless thee, and will multi- 
plythy seed, for myservant Abraham'ssake." 
In chap. 25 : 23, we read, " The Lord said 
unto Rebekah, Two nations are in thy womb, 
and two manner of people shall be separated 
from thee, and the one people shall be strong- 
er than the other, and the elder shall serve 
the younger." Here we have the first inti- 
mation that a part of Isaac's descendants are 
to be excluded from the heirs of promise, 
and yet not so that it could be certainly known 
how many of Isaac's descendants should 
be excluded. It was now about eighty- 
five years since the first promise was made 
to Abraham, and still as yet we find no certain 
rule by which to determine who were to be 
the heirs, except as guided by the successive 



28 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

revelations given from the Lord to the 
fathers. In chap. 26 : 3-5, the promise 
which was made to Abraham is repeated to 
Isaac : " In thy seed shall all the nations of 
the earth be blessed," but as yet it is gen- 
eral. In the same chapter, verses 33-35, 
we have the account of Esau selling his 
birth-right to Jacob ; and chap. 27: 27-9, 
we have the account of Isaac blessing Jacob, 
and, by the deception practiced by Jacob 
and his mother, giving him the blessing he 
intended for Esau, but which the Lord had 
intimated to his mother was intended for 
Jacob, though the younger. After this Esau 
seems no longer counted among the heirs. 
So that, in the third generation, we find that 
only one-sixteenth part of the children of 
Abraham are actually counted as heirs. 
Who, then, at this distant period, will ven- 
ture to say which of Abraham's descendants 
are the lawful heirs to these promises, with- 
out the plain declarations of His word or 
will to guide us ? 

Yours, &c, A. W. 



LETTER III. 

Rom. 9 : 6, For they are not all Israel which are of 
Israel. 

Dear Sir : — We have seen in our previ- 
ous examination, that in the third genera- 
tion, only one sixteenth part of the descen- 
dants of Abraham were actually counted as 
the heirs of the promise to Abraham, to 
whom Grod would give the land of Canaan 
— a very small part, when yet, the promises 
were as full to them then, as they are now 
to the seed of Abraham ; for they were the 
same, and if these promises did not prove 
that all the seed of Abraham were then 
heirs, how can they prove that all or any of 
those, who now claim to be descended from 
Abraham, are the lawful heirs ? 

In following the history of this interest- 
ing people, we find, that as yet, there is but 
one of the descendants of Abraham who is 
counted as the seed, when it is at least pro- 
3* 



30 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

bable, that there were at this time hun- 
dreds of the descendants of Abraham who 
were not counted as heirs, for it was now 
over 130 years since the birth of Isaac ; and 
the other seven children of Abraham seem 
to have increased much more rapidly at first, 
than the heirs of promise. It may be w T ell 
to keep these facts in view, when we read 
some of the later prophetic promises res- 
pecting the return of the seed of Abraham 
to the promised land. Those promises may 
include only the few who have not incurred 
the penalty of exscision. 

Jacob is now sent to Padanaram, where 
he serves fourteen years for two wives, and 
besides them, he has two concubines, by all 
of whom he has twelve sons and one daugh- 
ter. On his way back to Canaan and to his 
father's house, his name is changed to Israel, 
by the angel with whom he wrestled, and 
though Jacob and Esau seem now recon- 
ciled, and were together burying their fa- 
ther, yet we hear nothing of the children of 
Esau being included among the people of 
(rod, the heirs of promise. Jacob and his 
children were henceforth called Israelites, 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 31 

and Israel only was the covenant people of 
Grod. All Jacob's children seem now to be 
included, (except the daughter of whom we 
hear no more among Grod's people,) though 
six of his sons were born of a wife put 
upon him by deception, and four, of bond 
women ; thus setting aside all former rules 
of counting heirs, and setting at defiance 
all analogical rules. These twelve sons in 
process of time, seem all to have married 
Grentile wives, had families, and were with 
their father carried into Egypt, according to 
the declaration of G-od to Abraham, Gren. 15 : 
13, where they continued two hundred and 
fifteen years, a part of the time under severe 
bondage. " And Grod said unto Abraham, 
Know of a surety, that thy seed shall be a 
stranger, in a land that is not theirs, and 
shall serve them four hundred years." This 
expression it will be seen does not accord, 
with historical accuracy, to the event — and 
could not possibly have been understood be- 
fore its fulfilment. But it seems, together 
with the event recorded, a full evidence, 
that those only who were now called Is- 
raelites, and went into bondage, were count- 



32 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

ed for the seed and heirs to the prom- 
ises. 

And now, dear Sir, may we not learn 
from these historical sketches, the following 
facts, viz. : 

1st. That the prophetic promises made to 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, were of such a 
general character, that it will not do to 
explain them literally, as if delivered as 
history ? Take, for example, the promise, 
(xen. 13 : 15, "All the land which thou seest, 
to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for 
ever ;" and yet he, Abraham, never possess- 
ed any of that land, except a burying place. 
Do you say, that he is yet to be put in pos- 
session when Christ comes, and that the 
promise secures this to him ? Would not 
the same rule of interpretation lead us to 
say that all his seed, good and bad, were to 
be put in possession, who died in Egypt and 
in the wilderness, or before — not only the 
descendants of Jacob, but of all his seed ? 
And if not all, who from the prediction could 
tell how many ? The same is true of all 
that class of promises. 

How, again, would it do to give a literal 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 33 

interpretation to the prediction, Gen. 15 : 
13, " Know of a surety, that thy seed shall 
be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and 
shall serve them, and they shall afflict them 
four hundred years ; and also, that nation 
whom they shall serve, will I judge, and af- 
terward shall they come out with great sub- 
stance ?" You will admit, that this prophecy 
refers to their bondage in Egypt. But they 
were only two hundred and fifteen years in 
Egypt, and about seventy years of that time, 
they were provided for by Joseph, and were 
not actually in bondage. Nor was the whole 
sojourning of the Israelites, from the calling 
of Abraham to their coming out of Egypt, 
four hundred years ; for we are told by 
Moses, Ex. 12:40, that their sojournings 
were four hundred and thirty years. V. 41. 
"It came to pass at the end of four hundred 
and thirty years, that all the host of the 
Lord went out from the land of Egypt :" 
thus showing by the history of the event, 
that a literal fulfilment of the prophecy 
was not to be expected, and yet, that when 
these prophecies were fulfilled, they were 
sufficiently plain to show that nothing but 



34 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIES. 

a God who saw the end from the beginning, 
could have thus foretold them, and nothing 
but an Almighty God could have fulfilled 
them. 

2d. That from the beginning, only a 
small part of the children of Abraham 
were counted for the seed. 

3d. We learn, that from the beginning, 
we cannot determine, that a person is an 
heir to the promises, by the fact, that he 
has descended from Abraham, since many 
more of his children were always out of the 
covenant than in. It may be well to keep 
this in mind, when we come to the question, 
are the present Jews the heirs to any of 
these promises made to Abraham, and re- 
peated by the prophets ? 

Neither can we determine, that they are 
of Israel, and heirs to the promises, by the 
fact of their being circumcised — for it is 
certain, that many, if not all those who 
have already been dropped, were circumcis- 
ed, and so were all the three hundred ser- 
vants of Abraham. So that from the first 
many more were circumcised who were 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 35 

not in covenant, and not heirs, than those 
who were. 

4th. We learn, also, that the want of 
being wholly descended from the seed of 
Abraham, does not prove, that they are not 
heirs — for we have seen, that all the sons of 
Jacob, some of whom were from Grentile 
mothers, married Gentiles, and so were 
greatly mixed ; and that as soon as the or- 
dinance of the Passover was instituted, per- 
mission was given for strangers to join them : 
see Ex. 12:48, and Est. 8: 17, where 
we are told, that many of the people of the 
land became Jews. So that, as yet, we 
have no rule by which we can determine 
prospectively, who are to be the heirs, but 
must wait the farther and later instruction 
of the inspired writers ; which instructions 
are doubtless sufficiently plain for all im- 
portant practical purposes, as they were 
from the beginning. But these I must defer 
for my next. In the mean time, please 
keep in mind the results to which we have 
come, so far as you admit them, as they 
may have a bearing on what follows. 

Yours, &c, A. W. 



LETTER IV. 

Dear Sir : — I again begin with Paul's 
words, Rom. 9:6: " For they are not all 
Israel which are of Israel." Who, then, are 
the true heirs ? 

We have seen that no answer can be ob- 
tained to this question from the prophetic 
promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, nor 
yet from the sign of circumcision, and that 
only one-sixteenth part of Abraham's de- 
scendants were counted heirs down to the 
time of Jacob, who was first called by the 
name of Israel ; and now Paul tells us that 
they are not all Israel which are of Israel 
even ; so that it seems all his descendants 
are not to be counted ; at least Paul's 
words seem to imply this, though perhaps 
this is not their whole meaning. His twelve 
sons, however, for the present, seem all to 
be counted, and all went with their families 
to Egypt, even those who were born of the 
bond women. 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 37 

In tracing the history of Jacob's family, 
we are led to suppose that all their descen- 
dants who were living at the time of Moses, 
were recognized as Israelites, kept the 
Passover and came out of Egypt by Moses. 
But when the Lord instituted the ordinance 
of the Passover, he allowed them to receive 
Gentile converts ; who then, I suppose, in 
the language of Esther 8: 17, became 
Jews, and intermarried ; for there was 
but one law, and "he was to be as one 
born in the land."— Ex. 12: 43-49.— 
u This, said the Lord, is the law of the 
Passover : there shall no stranger eat of it : 
but every man's servant, when thou hast 
circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof: 
and when a stranger shall sojourn with you, 
and will keep the Passover to the Lord, let 
all his males be circumcised, and then let 
him come near and keep it, and he shall be 
as one that is born in the land." This sure- 
ly seems to imply that they might receive 
Gentiles, and when received they were 
counted as Jews. How many such were 
received, we have no means of determining. 
We have also the fact, Ex. 12 : 19, that if 
4 



'38 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

any eat unleavened bread during the seven 
days following the Passover, he was to be 
cut off from that people. So that from the 
first complete organization of the Jewish 
Church we find only a small part of the 
descendants of Abraham in it, and those 
mingled with Gentile converts, and that 
-Jews, for want of circumcision, &c, were 
cut off. How many converts were received, 
•or how many of the Israelites were cut off 
by the two exscinding laws, we have no 
.means of determining. 

After the complete organization of the 
Jewish Church, none were recognized as 
belonging to the heirs of promise, who were 
f not in that church, whether Jews or of Gren- 
tile origin, while all who were in it were 
^counted heirs. We now find about twenty 
.laws recorded by Moses for the violation of 
which they were to be cut off from the 
.promised seed, from the people of God, from 
Jiis church. When we read the history of 
the crimes of the Jews after this, we are 
led to suppose that many must have forfeited 
their standing in the church, but we will 
not anticipate. We have now the plain 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 39 

fact, that those regularly in the church were 
counted for Israel, and none else, and the 
laws of the church follow. 

When we follow them to the land of Ca- 
naan and see them there for four hundred 
and sixteen years governed by judges of the 
Lord's appointment, and see how often they 
transgressed their laws and were punished 
for their sins, we have some reason to think 
that many of them were even now cut off, 
or at least that they incurred the penalty, 
and that they were still not all Israel which 
were of Israel. 

We at length hear them asking for a 
king, 1 Sam. 8: 5 and 7 : when the Lord 
said of them to Samuel in answer to his 
complaint, " They have not rejected thee, 
but they have rejected me, that I should not 
reign over them ;" implying it may be the 
kind of reigning to which the prophets re- 
fer, when they speak of Christ reigning on 
earth over the seed of Abraham in the latter 
day, so that we may know the kind of rule 
He will exercise when we have found who 
are the seed and lawful heirs. 

After the days of Solomon, the nation of 



40 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

Israel divided into two kingdoms or parties: 
ten tribes followed Jeroboam, the son of 
Nebat, while the tribe of Judah, and the 
few that remained of Benjamin, followed 
Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, the rightful 
heir of David and of the kingdom. War 
ensued, and the division became permanent, 
the one party following the descendants of 
David their king, and the other Jeroboam 
and his successors, till the opposers of the 
sons of David, who, as a nation, had by their 
idolatry in setting up the golden calves, and 
refusing to go up to Jerusalem to keep the 
Passover, and by many other sins incurred 
the penalty of exscision from the people of 
God, were carried away captive by the As- 
syrians and mingled among the Gentiles till 
they were lost, and as a nation disowned of 
the Lord, and have not since been found. — 
See 1 Kings 12, to 2 Kings, 17th chapter, 
especially the first and last chapters men- 
tioned. So they are not yet all Israel which 
are of Israel. 

This total casting off of the ten tribes of 
Israel, about 350 years after Saul was made 
king, was threatened or foretold, 1 Kings, 14 ; 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 41 

15, and seems to have been the legitimate 
penalty of the laws which they had violated 
as a nation by setting up idols and depart- 
ing from the true God, and marks a new era 
in the history of Israel. The ten tribes, 
however, claimed the name of Israel, the 
name of all before. 

This is not mere conjecture. They had 
violated the law, the penalty of which was 
exscision, and when the Lord took the exe- 
cution of it in his own hands, we are told, 
2 Kings, 17 : 15-21, " They rejected his 
statutes and his covenant, which he made 
with their fathers, and his testimonies which 
he testified against them ; and they left all 
the commandments of the Lord their Grod, 
and made them molten images, even two 
calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all 
the host of heaven ;" and v. 18 : " Therefore 
the Lord was very angry with Israel, and 
removed them out of his sight. There was 
none left but the tribe of Judah only." 

This seems plain. All were cast out of 

the sight of the Lord but the tribe of Judah 

only. By which name the heirs of promise 

seem after this to have been generally 

4* 



42 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

known, though the name was now conven- 
tional from the name of that tribe, while 
the exscinded tribes claimed the old name, 
and to be the true heirs. This act of exscis- 
ion was not executed until there had been 
abundant time for all who did not in heart 
fall in with the idolatry of the nation of 
Israel to come out from among them and to 
join themselves with the tribe of Judah. 
This many of them did as soon as Jeroboam 
set up his calves. — See 2 Chron. 11 : 13, 16. 
"And the priests and the Levites that 
were in all Israel resorted to him (Reho- 
boam) out of all their coasts, and after them 
out of all the tribes of Israel, such as set 
their hearts to seek the Lord Gfod of 
Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice 
unto the Lord Grod of their fathers. So 
they strengthened the kingdom of Judah. " 
So that all the tribes of Israel were now 
represented and included in the tribe of 
Judah, Benjamin having before been with 
them. After this falling of a part of all the 
tribes to Judah, we find that during the 
good reigns of Asa and Hezekiah, many 
others of the ten tribes fell to Judah 4 which 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 43 

seems to justify the frequent allusion of the 
Prophets to Israel and Judah and all the 
tribes after this date, and after the nation 
of Israel — the ten tribes — were no longer 
counted as the covenant people of G-od. But 
in general, the heirs of Abraham, and of all 
the rich legacies bequeathed through him, 
were now called Jews — a mere conventional 
name — and not Israel. 

This view seems confirmed by the fact, 
that it is now more than 2,500 years since 
their cutting off, and so effectual has been 
that casting off of them out of his sight, 
that they have never since been found, 
though great efforts have been made in 
searching the whole earth to see if possible 
where they were settled. But they have not 
been found, and no wonder, for, if they are 
cast out of the sight of the Lord so as to be 
no longer his covenant people, they will not 
be seen by the eyes of men. The heirs, 
then, are now to be found only among those 
who are amalgamated with the tribe of Ju- 
dah, and are generally called Jews. But 
frequently the Prophets still speak of the 
whole house of Israel and Judah ; and James 



44 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

addresses his epistle in the New Testament 
to the twelve tribes of Israel ; thus, we 
think, showing that all Israel and Judah 
that would ever be found, was now among 
the Jews, and that henceforth we are to 
look to the Jews alone, in distinction from 
Israel, for the lawful heirs of Abraham and 
David. It may be well to add here, that it 
is not remembered by the writer of these 
letters, that when the nation of Israel were 
warned by the Prophets of their destruction 
by the Assyrians, that they ever intimated 
that as a nation they would be restored, (as 
in the case of Judah), but only that rem- 
nants w r ould return, such as referred to. 
The frequent allusion to the whole house of 
Israel is not thought to be an exception to 
this, for Judah, with the remnant of the 
other tribes, now compose the whole house 
of Israel, both Israel and Judah. The his- 
tory of Judah I must defer for the present. 
This, I think, we ■ may now safely lay 
down as our future rule of examination till 
the death of Christ, that all who were regu- 
larly in the Jewish church after its complete 
organization, were counted Israel — the seed 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 45 

of Abraham and heirs of the promises, and 
none others. Let us now proceed on this 
principle. 

Yours, &c, A. W« 



LETTER V. 

Dear Sir : — If the preceding views are 
right, then we are henceforth to look to the 
tribe of Judah, and the remnants amalga- 
mated with them, alone for the lawful heirs 
of Abraham and David, and the promises 
made to them. But, are they all heirs? 
This is the question still before us. Perhaps 
they are not yet all Israel which are of Is- 
rael, for Paul says, " He is not always a Jew 
which is one outwardly ;" and John, u I know 
the blasphemy of them that say they are 
Jews and are not." 

In tracing the history of the tribe of Ju- 
dah, we find that they also greatly departed 
from the Lord, and, about 125 years after 
the casting off of Israel, Judah was over- 
come, and a part of them led captive, and 
about eleven years after that, Jerusalem was 
taken, and their beautiful temple destroyed, 
and the Jews greatly scattered, u through the 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 47 

anger of the Lord" for their sins for which he 
cast them out of his presence, 2 Kings 24 : 
20, — not out of his sight, as he did Israel. 
He cast them out of Jerusalem and the tem- 
ple, the place where he manifested his pre- 
sence, but not before he had often warned 
them of this, as the consequence of their sin, 
preceded and accompanied by many predic- 
tive promises that after he had chastised 
them and the land had enjoyed her violated 
Sabbaths, at the end of seventy years he 
would, in answer to their prayers, open the 
way for their return. And so particular was 
the Lord in giving them this information for 
their encouragement, that he caused it to be 
stated by the historian, 2 Chron. 36: 22, and 
by Jeremiah several times, even naming the 
person by whom they were to be set at li- 
berty, while, of the ten tribes carried away 
by the Assyrians, the Lord said that he 
would cut them off head and tail, branch 
and rush, in one day, with no intimation of 
their return : thus intimating the total and 
irrevocable destruction of the ten tribes, as 
a people, while individuals, or remnants, 
might return to Judah, who were the only 



i 



48 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

people in covenant with God, and conse- 
quently the only heirs to the covenant pro- 
mises to Abraham and David. 

Of the Jews, it was distinctly said, when 
it was predicted that they would be led cap- 
tive to Babylon for their sins, that at the 
end of seventy years they should be brought 
back, and that Cyrus, though then not yet 
born, should be the person that would set 
them free, and that others would aid them 
in their return. Many other predictions 
were uttered in reference to that return — the 
building of the second temple and down to the 
coming and death of the Saviour, showing 
the great interest that the Lord had in them 
as his church, while the others seem to be 
wholly unnoticed, except those who had re- 
turned, and were connected with that tribe. 
The glory of the second temple, though the 
house was-- far inferior, was to be greater 
than the first, Hag. 2 : 9 — doubtless because 
of the presence of the promised Messiah and 
king, the son of David, taking possession of 
his own house. 

In this division of the tribes of Israel, we 
see again, as in the family of Abraham, 



LETTERS TO A M1LLENARIAN. 49 

many more were dropped out of the cove- 
nant, or rather exscinded, than were kept in. 
The bearing of this fact, though somewhat 
collateral, may hereafter be seen in the pro- 
gress of this investigation. 

Whether you admit all the previous views 
or not, you will admit that during the period 
of which we have been speaking, the lawful 
heirs were to be found in the church as then 
organized, whether descended wholly from 
Abraham, or from converts introduced, and 
intermarried as many had, and not among 
those who had been cut off for crimes, suf- 
fering the penalty of their exscinding laws. 

We now advance one step further, and, 
passing over the last 540 years, including the 
return spoken of by the prophets between the 
70 years and the coming of Christ, we come 
down to the time of John the Baptist. Here 
we see a new division, commencing under 
John, but modified and made permanent 
under Christ. When John came preaching 
repentance and baptism, and proclaiming 
that Christ had come, he did it only to Jews. 
But all did not believe. The part that be- 
lieved were called the disciples of John, and 
5 



50 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

the others Jews, though all were alike Jews. 
Jew and disciple became therefore again 
strictly conventional names, and could not 
at all determine who were the true Jews, 
if one party only was. 

After John had actually introduced Christ 
as the Lamb of (rod, that taketh away the 
sin of the world, and had taught the people 
that this was that prophet of whom Moses 
spake, and of whom many of the prophets 
had spoken, and who was to descend from 
David, and was to reign over the seed of 
Abraham, he set him apart to his work by 
baptism. Christ immediately began to 
preach, and to teach the true meaning of 
their own laws. In doing this, he spake as 
one having authority, and not as the Scribes. 
For, as High Priest regularly set apart of 
God, he had a right to teach. But, besides 
this, he spake with absolute certainty as to 
the true meaning of their laws. So that he 
gave them rules of life under their own laws, 
and claimed for himself to be their Messiah, 
who, according to their own Scriptures, was 
to be their future king, while as yet he was 
obedient to their laws, and made no new 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 51 

laws. Still, his explanations of their laws, 
and the rules of life inculcated under them, 
seemed to the Jews, when placed beside the 
teachings of the Scribes and Pharisees, like 
new laws and new rules. 

To these rules and to this teaching the 
larger part of the Jewish Church, as then 
constituted, refused to submit, declaring that 
he was an impostor, while another part of that 
people owned him as their rightful sovereign, 
the predicted son of David, who was to reign 
over them ; and now the division, com- 
menced under John somewhat modified, is 
renewed : one party, though the smaller, 
again receive Christ as the Lord and King, 
the other saying, We will not have this man 
to reign over us, for we have no king but 
Csesar. A war, at least of persecution, soon 
commenced, so violent that the two parties 
were permanently separated, as much as 
under Jeroboam and Rehoboam, or as Jew 
and Grentile, and have never since reunited, 
except so far as converts from those under 
Csesar have come over to those on the side of 
Christ ; and, such is the nature of their dif- 
ferent views, that no other union can be 






52 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

formed. Hence they are as effectually divid- 
at this day as they were when Christ was 
in the world. Keep in mind that this divi* 
sion was not between the Jews and Gen- 
tiles, but between the Jews themselves, as 
much so as that between the ten tribes and 
Judah, and such a division that the one 
party only could be the lawful heirs of the 
promises made to Abraham and David. 
Which, then, of these two parties were the 
true successors and lawful heirs ? Were 
those Jews who rejected the Saviour, and 
said, We have no king but Caesar, the lawful 
heirs ? or those Jews who believed in and 
received Christ as the true Messiah, their 
rightful sovereign, the predicted king of the 
Jews, the son of David ? Which of these 
parties forfeited their inheritance, as Esau 
did, by selling his birthright? To this I 
think the Scriptures give a definite answer ; 
but I must defer it to my next. 

Yours, &c, 

A. W. 



LETTER VI. 

Dear Sir : — In my last we followed the 
history of the Jews down to the time of their 
permanent division into two parties, under 
Christ and Csesar. Here we see the one 
party denouncing Christ as an impostor, 
who ought not to live, and joining with the 
unbelieving Grentiles in reviling and perse- 
cuting him, and finally in putting him to 
death ; the other receiving him as their 
long promised, long expected Lord and Sa- 
viour. We ask here, again, Did those Jews 
who received him as their promised Saviour, 
and who carefully followed and obeyed him, 
though often at greg.t sacrifices, thereby for- 
feit their character as Jews, and their claim 
as heirs to the promises made to Abraham 
and his seed ; and, did the other party, who 
called him an impostor, and who joined in per- 
secuting and putting to death the Son of Grod, 
thereby secure to themselves and their chil- 
5* 

i 



54 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

dren forever all those rich legacies which 
were yet due by covenant promise to the 
lawful heirs of Abraham ? Can you sup- 
pose that the forfeiture fell upon that party, 
though for the present the smaller, who 
obeyed the Saviour, and owned him as their 
promised deliverer ? and that the party who 
rejected him as an impostor, and continued 
to rebel against him after his resurrection, 
by that rebellion secured to themselves and 
their children these rich promised legacies 
from that very Saviour who had bequeathed 
these legacies, and who has risen to be the 
executor of his own will ? Would not this 
be rather a strange conclusion ? That such 
an act of rebellion, against their rightful 
sovereign, should be followed by such rich 
blessings, and that the obedience and love 
of the disciples of Christ, and the thousands 
of others who, during the preaching of the 
Apostles, fell to him, and owned him as their 
Saviour, should be followed by such fearful 
forfeiture to themselves and their children? 
At least, this is not the way in which vic- 
tors commonly reward their friends and ene- 
mies, and you can hardly maintain that 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 55 

Christ will really so reward his friends and 
enemies ; and yet such was the nature of 
that division, that you will admit that both 
parties could not after this be the heirs of 
all the rich legacies yet due to the lawful 
heirs of Abraham, for they were even more 
diverse than Jew and Grentile. Besides, the 
believing Jews, under the direction of their 
acknowledged Lord, ceased to circumcise 
their children, and to keep the Passover, in- 
termarried with believing Gentiles, and be- 
came one with them, so that if the present 
scattered people calling themselves the seed 
of Abraham, are the heirs, then the others 
must, in some way, have forfeited their 
claim, and lost their inheritance. Hence 
the question is fairly before us, which of 
these parties are the lawful heirs to the be- 
quests made of the Lord to Abraham and his 
seed? 

Must you not admit, in the absence of 
any other testimony, that the probability 
seems strongly in favor of those who believed 
in, and followed the son of David, and obeyed 
him as their lawful sovereign, and against 
those who said we will not have this man to 



56 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

reign over us, for we have no king but 
Csesar, and who still say the same ? For, 
as yet, both parties were Jews, both were 
circumcised, both kept the Passover, for no 
change was made in the Jewish economy or 
law, till after the death of Christ, so that 
both parties had equal claims in that res- 
pect. 

But what seems thus strongly probable, 
from their position, we think, is made abso- 
lutely certain by the teachings of Moses, 
Christ and the apostles, to which teachings 
we now turn. 

Passing, for the present, over the obscure 
prediction of Noah, Gen. 9 : 27, « That the 
time would come when Japheth should dwell 
in the tents of Shem,' and the law of Moses, 
Deut. 18 : 15-19, we will first turn to the 
teachings of Christ. 

When Christ began to teach, he seems to 
have assumed no more than princely author- 
ity, for being made under the law, he was 
as yet a subject of the law, as other men. 
After being publicly pointed out, and set 
apart by John as their Saviour, he began to 
teach, and gave them rules to regulate their 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 57 

conduct under the Jewish law; but, as yet, 
he repealed no laws. He spake indeed as 
one having authority, and not as the Scribes, 
who pretended to be no more than imperfect 
expounders of their law ; but Christ spake 
as one who knew perfectly the meaning of 
their laws, and what they were bound to do, 
as the people of G-od . His disciples admitted 
that he had a right so to do, and so do we, 
and all Christians, because he knew per- 
fectly the meaning of their laws. But 
if he had a right to give rules to a part of 
the Jews, had he not to all ? And can it be 
that those Jews w 7 ho rejected Christ and his 
expositions of the law and their duty under 
it, and w 7 ho are now called Jews, by a sort 
of common consent, would have lost their 
character as Jews and heirs of the promises, 
if they had obeyed him who had a right to 
rule in that way? when it was their duty to 
obey him as their prince, who was to be 
their future king ? And if ninety-nine out 
of one hundred had obeyed him, would the 
rest have been the only true Israelites, and 
all the others, because they did just what 
Christ said was their duty to do, have been 



58 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

cut off? This can hardly be, — for obedience 
to Christ never has separated any from the 
promises of Grod, while disobedience has al- 
ways tended to it. 

But let us hear what Christ says on this 
subject ; for, during his stay in the world, 
he often refers to it, though he did not for- 
mally set up his kingdom till after his resur- 
rection, when the Jewish law, having been 
fulfilled, ended, and all distinctions between 
Jew and Gentile seemed to cease. While 
in the world, Christ says to his opposers, 
Mat. 21 : 43, " The kingdom of heaven shall 
be taken from you and given to a nation 
bringing forth the fruits thereof." This seems 
to be intended as the exposition of the pre- 
ceding parable, in which he represents him- 
self and his disciples as one party, and his 
enemies as the other, as the Pharisees seem 
to admit in verse 45. They perceived that 
he spake of them. 

Again, Luke 19 : 12-27: In the parable 
of the nobleman who went into a far coun- 
try to receive for himself a kingdom, and to 
return, Christ seems to imply that those cit- 
izens who hated him, and sent a message 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 



59 



after him, saying, we will not have this man 
to reign over us, would, after that, be cut 
off from all the blessings of his reign when 
the nobleman should return ; for, after the 
king is represented as having finished call- 
ing his servants to account, those who pro- 
fessed to own him king, both good and bad, 
he adds, ' But those, mine enemies, who 
would not have me to reign over them, 
bring hither and slay them before me.' "Was 
not this nobleman Christ, and were not the 
servants professed believers, and were not 
these citizens those Jews who hated him ? 
Now if they were to be slain, it does not 
look like an intimation that they were here- 
after to be the exclusive heirs to the legacies 
bequeathed to Abraham and his seed, when 
the king should return, but rather that, like 
Esau, they had forfeited all claim to the 
character of (rod's peculiar people. 

This controversy between the two parties 
continued during the life of Christ, without 
any absolute separation, for as yet, both 
parties kept the laws of Moses, as Christ 
himself did, and taught all others to do it. 
But the night in which Christ was betray- 



60 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

ed, and just before that event, He eats the 
last Passover with his disciples, and then 
puts an end to that part of the Jewish in- 
stitution, by establishing the Lord's Supper 
in its stead, in anticipation of his death, 
which was soon to take place ; which sacra- 
ment was to be kept by his followers, till 
his second coming. " As often as ye eat this 
bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the 
Lord's death till he come." He then dies, 
and by that offering, puts an end to all the 
bloody sacrifices of the Jewish economy, 
which were typical of his sufferings. I 
came not, says Christ, to destroy the law, 
but to fulfil. After three days he rose again, 
and returning to his disciples, directed 
them to go and preach the gospel to all 
nations, beginning at Jerusalem, (where, ac- 
cording to the prophets, Christ was to begin 
his reign,) and to baptize in his name all 
who believed, and thus seal them as sub- 
jects of his kingdom. And did not Christ 
here begin his reign over the house of Israel 
and of Judah ? — not over those who rejected 
him, and thereby incurred the penalty of 
exseision, and were no more of Israel— but 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 



61 



I 



over his friends, who were now all that 
were left after that " diminishing of them" 
of which Paul speaks, Rom. 11 : 12, of the 
house of Israel and Judah, though many of 
the other tribes soon fell to him, as they did 
from the ten tribes to Judah in the days of 
Jeroboam ? 

But did Christ here begin his personal 
reign over Israel ? 

Let us see how far he changed his course 
of conduct, after his resurrection, toward 
his people, and try to determine whether 
Christ did now actually assume regal autho- 
rity. During his lifetime he acted as a 
prince under the laws of Moses, to which laws 
he was perfectly obedient, but he taught 
that a " certain nobleman went into a far 
country to receive for himself a kingdom, 
and to return ;" in allusion, it may be, to the 
customs of subordinate kings, who were 
heirs to vacant thrones, going to Rome to 
have their title to the kingdom confirmed. 
And this nobleman (we suppose) referred to 
himself returning after his resurrection. 
But did he after his resurrection assume and 
exercise regal powers, or any powers which 
6 



62 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

he did not before ? As the answer to this 
question has an important bearing on some 
other facts in the history of this interest- 
ing people (because as yet the people of 
God,) as well as on the question before us of 
inheritance, it may be well to examine it 
with some care. 

Until Christ had eaten the last Passover, 
he introduced no change in the Jewish wor- 
ship. He was as carefully obedient to every 
part of the Mosaic ritual, as any other man, 
but after that, and just before his death, 
he instituted the Lord's Supper, and direct- 
ed his disciples to keep it in remembrance 
of him and of his death, by which he seems 
to abolish the Passover. 

After his resurrection, when he met his 
disciples in Galilee, i where Jesus had ap- 
pointed them,' Jesus came and spake unto 
them, saying, " All power is given unto me, 
in heaven and in earth." How different this, 
from his language when he said, ' Who 
made me a judge and a divider over you V 
Here, he claims absolute power, not in sub- 
jection to the powers that be, but over them. 
" All power is given unto me in heaven and 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 63 

inearth." And to show that he is not any- 
longer subject to the laws of Moses, but 
acting as that prophet, whom Moses said, 
the Lord would raise up like unto Moses, 
and whom the Jews were to obey at the 
peril of being destroyed from the people of 
God, Acts 3 : 22, he virtually repeals the 
entire Jewish ritual, and says to his disci- 
ples, "Go ye therefore" in obedience to my 
command," and teach all nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to 
observe" — not the Jewish ceremonial laws, 
as heretofore required, — but " whatsoever I 
have commanded you." Before this, when 
he sent his twelve disciples to go and preach 
and heal, Mat. 10 : 5, he said, u Go not into 
the way of the Gentiles, and into any city 
of the Samaritans enter ye not." For then 
he was under the Mosaic laws, which limit- 
ed them to the Jews alone, but not so now. 
He now institutes the gospel dispensation, 
which was certainly a virtual repeal of the 
whole Mosaic ritual. So the Scribes and 
Pharisees understood it, and hence their bit- 
ter opposition. No man could after this be 



64 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

a follower of Christ, and yet be a Jew in 
the sense of the present Jews. He must 
lose the one or other character. Christ be- 
gins his reign by breaking down the parti- 
tion wall between Jew and Gentile, and 
sending his disciples over the wall to preach 
to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews, com- 
manding all to believe in him, as their pro- 
mised Saviour and king, and to obey all his 
commands. He commands them to baptize 
their disciples, and to keep the Lord's Sup- 
per instead of circumcise, and keep the 
Passover. You are now to regard my word, 
and not the law of Moses, as the rule of 
your conduct, and to teach all others to do 
the same, and I will hereafter send the 
Holy Spirit to give you such further instruc- 
tions as you need ; for which, they were to 
wait at Jerusalem. See Luke 24 : 49. This 
looks very much like assuming the powers 
of a king, when he repealed the old laws 
given by Moses, enacted his own, appointed 
officers to execute his laws, and carry on his 
government. These laws were as binding 
on the Jews as on the Gentiles. They were 
enacted at Jerusalem. Had not Christ a 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 65 

right to do so ? and were not the Jews bound 
to obey them ? Had they all done so, there 
would have been an end to the Jews, such 
as now call themselves the only Jews. There 
would have been none to receive any other 
promises. But the promises would have re- 
mained as now to the seed of Abraham, nor 
would the seed of Abraham thereby have 
been destroyed. Did their rebellion then 
constitute them the exclusive heirs, and 
did the obedience of those that believe cu* 
them off? 

But if Christ was now a king, he had a 
kingdom. Over whom then did he reign ? 
over which party ? the believing part or the 
unbelieving ? There can surely be but one 
answer to this. It was over those that 
obeyed his commands. But over whom was 
Christ the son of David to reign, according 
to the prophets ? was it not over the house 
of Israel and the house of Judah ? Must 
not, then, the part that believed and obeyed 
Christ, be the Israel of whom the prophets 
speak, when they speak of David being 
king over Israel after the death of Christ ? 
Does not all this seem to favor the opinion, 
6* 



66 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN, 

that the party who were true believers, 
were after this to be counted for the seed 
and heirs of Abraham, and of all the lega- 
cies yet due to those heirs, and that those 
of whom Christ says, John 8 : 44, " Ye are 
of your father the devil," had lost all claim 
to the inheritance still due to the seed of 
Abraham ? But more of this in my next. 
Yours, &e., A. W. 



LETTER VII. 

Bear Sir : — In my last we left Christ 
giving directions to his disciples in relation 
to the organization of his kingdom among 
the Jews. The disciples went on according 
to the command of Christ, whom they owned 
as their prophet and king, and taught in 
what way they could now be admitted as the 
true Israel of God, or as the subjects of this 
kingdom — appointed officers in obedience 
to the teachings of Christ — and received into 
this kingdom of Christ such as professed to 
believe him their divinely appointed Saviour 
and King, and were willing to submit to his 
rule ; but teaching, as Christ commanded, 
that those only who were true believers and 
became Christ's people in heart, were to be 
regarded as now the subjects of Christ's 
kingdom, and the future seed of Abraham, 
according to the promise of God by Jer. 31 : 
31-34, 'Behold thedays come,saith the Lord, 



68 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

that I will make a new covenant with the 
house of Israel, and with the house of Ju- 
dah, not according to the covenant that I 
made with their fathers in the day that I 
took them by the hand to bring them out of 
the land of Egypt, which my covenant they 
brake, although I was a husband unto them, 
saith the Lord. But this shall be the cove- 
nant that I will make with the house of 
Israel after those days, saith the Lord ; (but 
after what days ? Just after Rachel was 
weeping for her children, and would not 
be comforted.) I will put my law in 
their inward parts, and write it in their 
hearts, and I will be their God, and they 
shall be my people ; and they shall teach 
no more every man his neighbor, and every 
man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for 
all shall know me from the least of them 
to the greatest of them, saith the Lord ; for 
I will forgive their iniquity, and their sins 
will I remember no more.' 

The former covenant was made with 
them as a nation, the larger part of whom 
were unbelievers in heart and wicked, and 
therefore there was need of one saying to 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 69 

another, know the Lord . But this second 
new and better covenant, as Paul calls it, 
and under which, as I think, we shall here- 
after see we are now living, was to be so 
made with Israel and Judah, that every in- 
dividual was to have the law written in 
their hearts, or, in other words, that no one 
could belong to it who was not a true be- 
liever and received Christ as their king, and 
his laws as the rule of their conduct, and 
hence there would be no need of the sub- 
jects of this new covenant saying one to 
another, know the Lord. For this house of 
Israel, with whom this covenant was to be 
made, would all know the Lord. Hence 
Paul says in his day, under this new cove- 
nant, ' He is not a Jew which is one out- 
wardly — but he is a Jew which is one in- 
wardly, and circumcision is that of the 
heart;' and again, ' If ye be Christ's, then 
are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according 
to the promise.' Are not these then the 
subjects of Christ's kingdom ? 

But if Christ be now king in his church, 
and has actually established his own laws 
in his kingdom, and his officers to execute 



70 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

them, and required all Jews to obey them 
at the peril of death eternal, does it not 
seem to follow that whatever of laws or 
ordinances there were or now are among the 
Jews, such as constitute them a separate 
people from the rest of the world, and lead 
to their being called Jews, are in opposition 
to the king, are self-created in rebellion 
against him, according to the saying, we 
will not have this man to reign over us ; 
and can such a rebellious circumcising and 
keeping of the Passover constitute them in 
a scriptural or prophetic sense the covenant 
people of God more than the Ishmaelites 
would be, if they should do the same, to the 
exclusion of those who believed and obeyed 
their lawful king ? Can circumcising and 
keeping the law of Moses, in rebellion 
against the command of God in Christ, con- 
stitute them Jews in covenant with God, 
and heirs of the legacies bequeathed to the 
seed of Abraham, more than it would any 
one of us, since the law of Moses admitted 
Gentile converts to be counted heirs? "Why 
would a rebellious keeping of the law of 
Moses, after that law is repealed by Christ, 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 71 

constitute them heirs more than it would 
any other Gentile — since both are alike com- 
manded to believe in and obey Christ, and 
not the laws of Moses ? But if these are 
not in covenant with Grod, then they seem 
to have no claims to the promises made of 
Grod to Abraham and his seed, for these 
were made to Grod's covenant people, and 
because of his covenant to them ; but which 
covenant, the Lord says by Jeremiah, they 
brake, and hence the new. But if they are 
not in covenant, then are not those who sub- 
mit to Christ, (for with them the new cove- 
nant seems to be made,) and are they not 
then the heirs to all the unpaid legacies of 
the Abrahamic will, to the entire exclusion 
of those who have broken their covenant 
with Grod, as much as the men who of old 
refused to keep the Passover, while it was 
yet the command of Grod to keep it ? Would 
not a contrary conclusion imply that the 
prophets taught that rebellion against Christ 
was necessary to secure to their children the 
legacies yet due to the seed of Abraham, 
while Christ denounced them for their un- 
belief and rebellion, as being not the seed 



72 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

of Abraham, but of their father the devil, 
and while John impliedly says, Luke 3 : 8, 
that God would sooner raise up seed from 
the very stones than count those who did not 
'bring forth fruits meet for repentance?' 

Do you here say that if the believing 
Jews did forfeit the promise to Abraham, to 
their seed, still they secured everlasting 
life, which the unbelieving Jews lost — so 
that the friends of Christ had still the greater 
blessing ? If we grant this, would it not 
array the New Testament and Old Testa- 
ment promises and threatenings against 
each other? On this supposition, would not 
the Jew have been placed in such a position 
that go which way he would he must incur 
one penalty, and secure one promise ? If he 
followed Christ, he forfeited the promise to 
Abraham. If he rejected Christ, he forfeit- 
ed the promise of Christ, and secured that 
made to Abraham. So that whatever way 
he went, he incurred one penalty, and se- 
oured one promise. Can that be ? Can 
Christ be thus arrayed against Abraham ? 
Did the prophets teach so ? 

But let us now turn to the teachings of 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 73 

the apostles, and see whether we can learn 
more definitely which of these parties they' 
taught were the true Israelites and heirs to 
the promises made to the seed of Abraham, 
for they had heard the teachings of Abraham 
as explained by Christ. Their conduct 
seems to give the answer, but their more de- 
finite teachings we must defer to my next. 
Yours, &c, A. W. 



LETTER VIII. 

Dear Sir : — Having shown that the Jews 
under Christ divided into two parties, the 
one following Christ, and the other rejecting 
him, and saying, we have no king but Cae- 
sar, and that they (never having reunited) 
could not both be the seed of Abraham, and 
heirs of the legacies given to his seed ; 
and also, that Christ strongly intimated that 
those who followed him, and not his ene- 
mies, would receive these legacies, we now 
proceed to examine how the apostles who 
were sent forth to carry out the laws and 
teachings of Christ understood him. Who 
did they teach were the heirs ? and who 
had forfeited their claim to the promises of 
Grod to Abraham and David? They who 
followed the Son of David as their promised 
Messiah and lawful king, or those who re- 
jected him ? Both parties, as yet, were cir- 
cumcised, and for about seven years to 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 75 

come, both parties were Jews. The party 
who rejected Christ claimed to be the seed 
of Abraham ; but Christ said, in reply to that 
claim, John 8 : 39-41. ' If ye were Abra- 
ham's children ye would do the works of 
Abraham — ye do the deeds of your father, — 
v. 44, For ye are of your father the devil.' 
Paul, in the second chapter of Romans, after 
proving that circumcision did not now con- 
stitute them heirs, since they were living 
under the new covenant, says, vers. 28, 29, 
i For he is not a Jew which is one outward- 
ly, neither is that circumcision which is 
outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew 
which is one inwardly, and circumcision is 
that of the heart in the spirit, and not in 
the letter.' Paul was here speaking of his 
own time about twenty-seven years after 
the death of Christ, and proving that out- 
ward circumcision did not then constitute 
them the seed of Abraham, or properly, 
Jews, but that a change of heart did, and 
so claimed for himself and his party to be 
the true Jews, the lawful seed and heirs of 
the promises of Abraham, or made to Abra- 
ham and David. To this, we think, agree 



76 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

the words of Paul to the Gal. 3 : 7, " Know 
ye, therefore, that they which are of faith 
the same are the children of Abraham ;" and 
v. 29, " If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abra- 
ham's seed and heirs, according to the 
promises ;" for, ver. 16, To Abraham and his 
seed were the promises made. Is it not here 
plainly declared that those who are Christ's 
by faith are the seed of Abraham, to whom 
the promises belong ; not only that part of 
the promise which referred to Christ, but all 
the legacies yet due to the lawful heirs of 
Abraham ; and does it not imply that the 
other party who rejected Christ, and who 
were now as distinct from the disciples of 
Christ, as were ever Gentiles from Jews, 
were not heirs ? though for seven years both 
parties were circumcised Jews. Nor does 
it seem to alter this conclusion at all, that 
after some of the Jewish branches were 
broken off from this Jewish tree which still 
lives, Gentile converts were more numer- 
ously grafted in. The tree remained the 
same, with some changed branches. 

Could the apostle have declared in plainer 
language that circumcision did not consti- 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 77 

tute a Jew; that lineal descent from Abra- 
ham and circumcision did not constitute an 
heir of the promises ; but that henceforth, 
under the gospel dispensation, true believers 
in Christ are now to be considered the seed of 
Abraham, and heirs of all the promises made 
to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David, which 
are still unfulfilled, and so are still due to 
the house of Israel, and the house of Judah, 
who are the seed of Abraham. So that if 
the Prophets speak of the house of Israel and 
Judah, or of the seed of Abraham, &c, of 
the present time, do they not speak of those 
who are in Christ, whom Paul calls the seed 
of Abraham, and heirs of the promises, in 
opposition to those who claim to be Jews ? 

Again, Rom. 11 : Paul, speaking of the 
Jewish church under the figure of a tree, 
says, ver. 17, " And if some of the branches 
be broken off, and thou being a wild olive 
tree wert grafted in among them," &c. ; and 
vers. 23-24, " And they also, if they abide 
not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in, for 
God is able to graft them in again ; for if thou 
wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild 
by nature, and wert grafted contrary to na- 
7* 



78 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

ture, into the good olive tree, how much 
more shall these which be the natural bran- 
ches be grafted into their own olive tree?" 
Does not Paul here take it for granted, that 
the Jewish or Abrahamic tree still lives in 
that part of the nation that followed Christ, 
and that the unbelieving Jews were cut off, 
and no longer had any claim to be the heirs 
of promise ? And does he not expressly say, 
that if they ever return, it is to be by being 
re-engrafted into their own olive tree, which 
still lives, and is not that tree the part 
of the Jews who follow Christ, or true 
believers, whether Jews or Gentiles ? If 
Paul does not teach that the unbelieving 
Jews were cut off, we know not how he 
could have taught it, or how he could have 
taught that those who were in Christ were 
the seed of Abraham, and heirs according 
to the promise, and the Abrahamic tree 
still lives, though diminished, as in verse 
12. 

Again, when writing on the same subject 
to the Gralatians, he seems to teach the same 
truths — G-al. 4 : 21-31. Paul here declares 
that Isaac and Ishmael allegorically repre- 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARTAN. 79 

sent the two covenants : the old, at Mount 
Sinai, with Moses and Israel, and the new, 
with Christ and his church or people. That 
the Sinaic represented the present Jerusa- 
lem in bondage ; but the latter the Jerusa- 
lem or church which is free ; and then adds, 
emphatically, ver. 28, " Now we, brethren, 
as Isaac was, are the childrenof promise ; but 
as then he that was born after the flesh per- 
secuted him that was born after the spirit, 
so it is now : nevertheless, what saith the 
scripture? Cast out the bond-woman and 
her son, for the son of the bond -woman shall 
not be heir with the son of the free." So 
then, brethren, we (the believing Jews 
and engrafted Grentiles) are not children 
of the bond-woman, but of the free." 
Could Paul have given to a Jew a more lu- 
cid representation of his total exclusion 
from all the Abrahamic promises or cove- 
nant promises, than by declaring that he 
stood in the same relation to Abraham that 
Ishmael did, whom all the Jews, with one 
voice, declare to have no part nor lot with 
the promised seed of Abraham ? Or could he 
have set up a stronger claim for himself 



80 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

and his companions, the believing Jews, to- 
gether with the engrafted Grentiles, than by 
saying, thus emphatically, 'Now we, breth- 
ren, as Isaac was, are the children of prom- 
ise, when all the Jews admitted that none of 
the seed of Abraham, excepting Isaac, were 
included in the promise ? Does it not then 
follow, that when the prophets, speak of the 
heirs of promise, or the seed of Abraham, 
or house of Israel and Judah — in reference 
to the present time, they speak only of true 
believers, and not at all of those outcast 
Jews, who have incurred the penalty of ex- 
cision ? If such declarations as we have re- 
ferred to, do not prove that those in Christ 
are the true seed of Abraham, and heirs of 
the promise, we ask what language could 
prove it ? — while it seems to show, with 
equal explicitness, that the present Jews are 
cut off, and are not the heirs of promise. 
But of this more in my next. Even at the 
hazard of appearing somewhat tedious in 
repeating the same texts, we will try to 
show they are excinded. 

Yours, &c, A. "VV. 



LETTER IX. 

JEWS REJECTED. 

Dear Sir : — That the covenant relation 
of the Jews with God, ended at the death 
of Christ, and that therefore, no covenant 
promises made to Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob, and repeated by the prophets belong 
to them at present, may be farther inferred, 

1. From the fact, that the penalty of many 
of their laws was excision from the Lord's 
people. See Gren. 17 : 14. ' And the uncir- 
cumcised man-child, whose flesh of his fore- 
skin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut 
off from his people, Ke hath broken my cove- 
nant'. See again Ex. 12 : 19. 4 Seven days 
there shall be no leaven found in your houses, 
for whosoever eateth that which is leaven- 
ed, even that soul shall be cut off from the 
congregation of Israel, whether he be a 
stranger or born in the land.' See again 
Num. 9 : 13. " But the man that is clean, 



83 LETTERS TO A MTLLENARIAN. 

and is not in a journey, and forbeareth to keep 
the Passover, even the same soul shall be cut 
off from his people.' Ex. 22 : 20. ' He that 
saorificeth to any god, save unto the Lord 
only, he shall be utterly destroyed.' See 
also, Ex. 30 : 33 and 38 ; 31 : 14 ; Lev. 7 : 
20-27 ; 17 : 4, 9, 10, 14 ; and 18 : 1-24. 
Now most of these laws they had broken, 
as is proved both by the historians and the 
prophets of the Old Testament, before the 
Babylonish captivity — at least great num- 
bers of them had. Such were the charges 
brought against them, in justification of 
the Lord's dealing with them, when he suf- 
fered them to be subdued and led into cap- 
tivity by their enemies. And this may ac- 
count for the fewness of those who were 
brought back from their captivities, for all 
those who had by their sin incurred the pe- 
nalty of excision, could no longer claim 
that they were of Israel — -and therefore, 
the promise of Grod by the prophets, to res- 
tore all of them who were of Israel was 
fulfilled, though all that had incurred the 
penalty of excision were left, when the 
rest were brought back — according to Amos 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 



83 



9:8,9.' Behold the eyes of the Lord God are 
upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy 
it from off the face of the earth ; saving 
that I will not utterly destroy the house of 
Jacob, saith the Lord. Fors lo, I will com- 
mand, and I will sift the house of Israel 
among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a 
sieve ; yet shall not the least grain fall upon 
the earth.' Now if they were sifted, was it 
not to separate the chaff from the grain, as 
was done in their last captivity, the return 
from which commenced seventy years after 
they were carried captive, and was com- 
pleted at or before the resurrection of 
Christ, when there were dwelling at Jeru- 
salem Jews, devout men out of every nation 
under heaven, as recorded Acts 2:5? After 
which the prophet goes on to say how the 
house of David is to be built up without the 
rebels who were cut off. V. 11. In that day 
will I raise up the tabernacle of David which 
is fallen down. But how is this to be done? 
By bringing back those Jews who have in- 
curred the penalty of excision ? Let James 
answer, Acts 15 : 14-17. Referring to this 
prediction, he says, " Simeon hath declared 



84 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 



how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to 
take out of them a people for his name," — 
not out of the excinded Jews." And to this 
agree the words of the prophets, as it is 
written : After this I will return, and will 
build again the tabernacle of David which is 
fallen down, and I will build again the ruins 
thereof, and I will set it up, that the residue of 
men might seek after the Lord, and all the 
Gentiles upon whom my name is called, 
saith the Lord, who doeth all these things." 
In the last revolt of the Jews, when they 
rejected Christ, denounced him as an impos- 
tor unworthy to live, declared they would 
not have him to reign over them, and put 
him to death, they seemed to have filled up 
the measure of their iniquity, and to have 
fully incurred the penalty of final excision 
according to the law of Moses. Deut. 18 : 
15-19. "The Lord thy God will raise up 
unto thee a prophet, from the midst of thy 
brethren, like unto me. Unto him shall 
ye hearken," &c, as explained by Peter, 
Acts 3 : 22, 3. " For Moses truly said unto 
the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your 
God raise up unto you, of your brethren 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 85 

like unto me : him shall ye hear in all things 
whatsoever he shall say unto you, and it 
shall come to pass, that every soul that will 
not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed 
from among the people." 

Now if Moses referred to the time of the 
coming of Christ and to Christ, as that pro- 
phet, and Peter also, as probably all admit, 
then it seems to follow, with almost demon- 
strative certainty, that all who continued 
to reject Christ did incur the penalty, and 
were actually exscinded from the covenant 
people of Grod ; the church of Christ which 
was now organized according to the new 
covenant foretold by Jeremiah 31 : 31-34, 
explained by Paul, Heb. 8 : 8-13, and was 
as yet as essentially Jewish as it ever had 
been. 

At this time all who did not join in the 
revolt, came out from among them, and put 
themselves under the rule of Christ, so that 
the Jews, as such were now, as distinctly 
divided from the Jewish church of Christ, 
now called the disciples of Christ, and af- 
terward Christian, as ever the Jews and 
Gentiles were ; now as those Jews who re- 
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86 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

jected Christ as an impostor, and joined in 
crucifying him as such, had plainly incurred 
the penalty of their own law as explained 
by Peter, an inspired apostle, by refusing to 
hear and obey Christ, must we not infer 
that they were cut off from all covenant 
relations to God, and from all the promises 
made to Abraham ? If not, then that part 
of the Jews who did hear and obey that 
prophet, the admitted son of David, who 
was to reign over them, must have been cut 
off. For if the Jews now, so called, are not 
cut off, then those that obeyed .Christ were, 
for both parties were not and are not now 
Jews in the same sense, nor do the pro- 
phets refer to and speak of both parties, as 
the Jews and Israel of Grod. And since the 
penalty of the law for disobedience was ex- 
cision, must we not infer that those who 
disobeyed were cut off, and not those who 
obeyed, and cut off, so as to have no more 
claim than the uncircumcised man-child to 
the promises made to Abraham, &c. ? 

2. This excision may be inferred from 
the fact, admitted by all, that before the 
death of Christ, the Jews did suffer the 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 87 

curses of Moses, which were but another 
name for the penalties for the violation of 
those laws published and repeated by Moses ; 
at the same time, that the law requiring 
excision for rejecting Christ was publish- 
ed. Great numbers of them were slain in 
their wars, and were thus cut off — but 
many others were carried captive and suf- 
fered these curses or penalties, for their 
sins before the death of Christ, and since 
the destruction of Jerusalem it has been 
the common lot of those who rejected 
Christ. 

Now if all the other penalties pronounced 
by Moses have fallen upon the violators of 
the law, upon those who would not have 
Christ to reign over them, and are still call- 
ed Jews, must not the penalty of final ex- 
cision from the people of God, which was 
the specific penalty for not obeying Christ, 
have fallen upon them also ? and not upon 
those who followed and obeyed Christ. For 
upon the one or the other the penalty has 
been executed — for all admit, that both par- 
ties are not now the Israel of the promises. 
Can we then suppose that all the other pe- 



88 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

nalties have been executed on the rejectors 
of Christ, and that the penalty which was 
specifically the penalty for rejecting the 
Saviour has been executed, not upon the re- 
jectors of Christ, but upon those who fol- 
lowed and obeyed the Saviour, and upon 
their descendants. This surely would be 
a strange conclusion, when Peter says, that 
every soul that will not hear that prophet, 
shall be destroyed from among the people. 

3. That the present Jews have forfeited 
all their covenant blessings, may be inferred 
again from what John says, Mat. 3 : 9 and 
10, " And think not to say within yourselves 
we have Abraham to our father, for I say 
unto you that Grod is able of these stones to 
raise up children unto Abraham. And now 
also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees, 
therefore every tree which bringeth not forth 
good fruit is cast into the fire," and also from 
what Christ said would be after his death. 
Mat. 21 : 33-45. In the last verse of this 
parable, the Jews admit that he had spoken 
of them in the preceding part — %i They per- 
ceived that he spake of them," — in which he 
represents the conduct of those who reject 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 89 

him as so unreasonable and wicked as to 
justify his declaration, v. 44, " Therefore, 
I say unto you, the kingdom of heaven 
shall be taken from you, and given to a 
nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." 
Christ does not, like the prophets who pre- 
dicted their captivity by the Babylonians, 
foretell that there would be a return of them, 
or of the kingdom to them, but leaves it as 
an absolute separation of them from the peo- 
ple of God as enemies, so long as they re- 
mained by their obstinate unbelief separate, 
just as the curses of Moses would follow them 
evermore. 

Now what did Christ mean, if he did not 
mean that their special favors as Jews would 
end after they had put him to death? and 
why, if these favors were ever to return in a 
special manner to them, did not Christ hold 
out some encouragement to them that when 
they repented as a people they would be 
again restored to their own land, as all the 
prophets who spake before the captivity did ? 
How can we account for the fact that when 
he was pronouncing those dreadful woes that 
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90 LETTERS TO A xMILLENARIAN. 

were to overtake that part of the Jews who 
rejected him when the Romans would in- 
vade their land, and destroy their temple, 
and city, and country — woes such as had 
never been, and never would be again to the 
end of the world, that he did not then, or 
ever after, hold out one ray of comfort by 
way of pointing them to the time of the end 
of these woes, and their returning prosperi- 
ty, when he would bring them back to the 
land of their fathers, and reign over them in 
person, if that were his purpose ? and if the 
promises secured that to them, to the exclu- 
sion of those that obeyed him ? He gave 
abundant directions to those who believed 
in and obeyed him how they should act and 
sustain themselves during those trying times, 
by warning them to flee from the city, and 
pointing them to his power to save and re- 
ward his friends. "Why then does he not 
give one word of comfort to his enemies? 
Is it here said that there are intimations, 
Mat. 23 : 37, and Luke 13: 34, and 21 : 24, 
that the Jews will again be recalled ? We 
answer that these are only intimations by 
forced constructions, and that there is not 



LETTEftS TO A MILLENARIAN. 91 

one word of direct assertion, such as the 
prophets used, that they will ever be brought 
back to the land of their fathers, either as 
the church or as a people to the church. In 
all ordinary cases the predictions of Christ 
are more plain than those of the Old Testa- 
ment prophets. He foretells their captivity 
and the total destruction of Jerusalem with 
more distinctness. Why then, \ve ask again, 
when Christ was comforting that part of 
the Jews w T ho obeyed him, did he not give 
one word of comfort to the others, by naming 
the time of their returning prosperity ? For, 
bad as they were described to be by the pro- 
phet, Eze. 8 : 5-18, before the final destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, and 
certain as their captivity was in consequence 
of their sin, yet to encourage them while 
captives he predicts their certain returning 
prosperity, 16 : 60-64 ; 20 : 34-40 ; 34 : 13 
-16, and especially 37 : 21-25, " And say 
unto them, thus saith the Lord God, Behold, 
I will take the children of Israel from among 
the heathen whither they be gone, and 
will gather them on every side, and bring 
them into their own land," &c. Why then, 



92 LETTERS TO A MlLLENARIAN. 

did not Christ, when he had foretold these 
dreadful woes, then, or ever after, thus 
plainly point them to the time of their cer- 
tain return, if that were his purpose ? Let 
him answer for himself, as he does in the 
parable of the nobleman, Luke 19 : 12-27, 
w T ho went into a far country to receive for 
himself a kingdom, and to return, and he 
delivered to his servants ten pounds and said 
occupy till I come, but his citizens hated 
him, and sent a message after him saying, 
We will not have this man to reign over us* 
Was not this nobleman Christ, and were 
not these citizens the party of the Jews who 
rejected him? and what became of them? 
After his return and calling his servants to 
account, he adds, v. 27, " But those mine 
enemies which would not that I should reign 
over them, bring hither and slay them be- 
fore me." Could Christ have given a plainer 
reason why he spake to them of no return 
to prosperity in the land of their fathers, or 
a more vivid description of what would be 
their doom when he came the second time ? 
Have they not then forfeited all their cove- 
nant promises and become Gentiles., as 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 93 

much as the Edomites, who also descended 
from Abraham ? Nor will the meaning of 
the foregoing parable be much altered 
whether we fix our minds on the return of 
Christ to his disciples after his resurrection, 
when he said all power in heaven and earth 
is given unto me, and on that power set up 
his kingdom, appointing his own officers to 
execute his laws, and carry on his govern- 
ment in the midst of Jerusalem, thereby 
virtually repealing the entire Jewish code of 
ceremonial laws ; and his subsequently des- 
troying their city and temple as the penalty 
for their refusing to have him reign over 
them — after he had called all his friends out 
of it — or fix our minds on his future coming, 
at the day of final account. 

4. The entire exclusion of the present 
Jew from all the promises made to Abra- 
ham, fee., may be inferred again from what 
Paul says to the Romans and Gralatians, 
after the death of Christ, and the church or 
kingdom of Christ was regularly organized 
according to his own laws, and by the ap- 
pointment of his own officers out of that 
part of the Jews who received Christ as 



94 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

their king, and the others who rejected him 
wholly separated from them, so that they 
were no longer one people, obeying one set 
of laws as when Christ was in the world — 
but two distinct and separate parties, obey- 
ing different laws and as bitterly opposed to 
each other on the part of the Jews as were 
Jews and Gentiles. 

Rom. 11 : 15-25, Paul speaking of the 
Abrahamic church under the figure of a 
tree, represents the unbelieving part of the 
Jews as cut off from the old tree, -while the 
tree still lives, though diminished, verse 12, 
and is increased by the engrafting of Gen- 
tiles. Their exclusion is made perfect by 
their being cut off for their unbelief as 
worthless branches from a tree ; and verse 
23, he shows that if any of them repented 
and turned to Christ, they were to be en- 
grafted into the old Abrahamic tree, which 
had all the while been living. They are to 
be engrafted just as Gentiles, with no more 
claim to the promises than other Gentiles. 
Are they not then, at present, cut off just as 
much as any other Gentiles? Is it said that 
Paul brings them all back in verse 26 ? To 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 95 

this we can only say, for the present, this is 
far from being plain, and very doubtful as 
to its true meaning, as we shall hereafter en- 
deavor to show, and does not seem to alter 
the saying, in verse 23, that they are to be 
engrafted singly, as other Grentiles, even 
should they all return under Paul's predic- 
tion. 

Again, (xal.4 : 21-31, Paul teaches that 
Isaac and Ishmael allegorically represent 
the two covenants ; the old at Mount Sinai, 
and the new under Christ. That the Sinaio 
represented the present Jerusalem in bond- 
age, but the latter the Jerusalem which is 
free, and then* adds, emphatically, v. 28 — 
Now we, brethren, (believers) as Isaac was, 
are the children of the promise. But, as 
then, he that was born after the flesh per- 
secuted him that was born after the spirit, 
so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the 
scripture ? Cast out the bond-woman and 
her son, for the son of the bond- woman shall 
not be heir with the son of the free, so then 
brethren, we are not the children of the bond- 
woman, but of the free. We then repeat 
again : 



96 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 



Could Paul have given to a Jew a more 
vivid representation of his total exclusion 
from all the Abrahamic promises, or from 
the Abrahamic covenant, than by declaring 
that they stood where Ishmael did, and had 
no better claim to the promises than he, 
whom all the Jews, with one consent, de- 
clared had none ? 

And must we not infer from this that when 
Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, or any 
other Old Testament prophet, predict what 
is to be the future condition of the seed of 
Abraham, under whatever name, they no 
more refer to that part which were cut off 
from the covenant relation, as here repre- 
sented, than they do to the Ishmaelites, the 
Edomites, or any others that were cut off? 
Where can you find the evidence in the Old 
Testament prophecies, that one part of the 
excinded seed of Abraham will be brought 
back more than the others? To the New Tes- 
tament predictions we shall hereafter refer. 

5th. Finally, is not the exclusion of the 
Jews proved from the fact that for 1800 
years they have been excluded from all the 
privileges of the peculiar people of God ? 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 97 

When, before the coming of Christ, the Jews 
were in captivity in Babylon for 70 years 
only, it seemed long, and prophets were 
sent of God again and again, to encourage 
them and to point them to the time of their 
return, and to assure them that as certain 
as day and night should continue, so certain 
should their return be to their own land, 
after 70 years ; for then the Church of 
Christ was in captivity with them, and she 
complained to her Lord, whose eye was upon 
her, of her sore bondage. But not so now 
the Church is not in captivity with the pre- 
sent Jews. They only stand as beacons of 
warning to the Church — but the Church is 
not there, nor are ministers sent to them to 
read to them, out of the New Testament, 
predictions making their return certain. 

Millenarians point us to the condition of 
the Jews, from the destruction of Jerusalem 
by the Romans, to the present day, to prove 
that they are actually suffering the very 
woes described in the curses of Moses and 
foretold by the prophets for their sins, and 
that, therefore, these are the very people of 
whom Moses and the prophets spake, and 
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98 LETTERS TO A MILLENAJUAN. 

they seem to make out a strong case. But if 
they are right and if their suffering the very 
woes which Moses said would follow them 
evermore, for the violation of their laws, 
proves that they are the people of whom 
Moses spake, and that their present sufferings 
are the very penalties to which Moses re- 
ferred,— does it not follow with the same 
certainty that when they have been cut off 
from the people of God for more than 1800 
years, so as to have no more connection with 
them than the Gfentile had with the Jew ; 
that they are suffering the penalty of exci- 
sion also, as much as ever the descendants 
of Esau did, and that they have, therefore, 
no more claim to the covenant promise made 
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, than the un- 
circumcised man-ch'ld ? 

Why is the one, more proof that they are 
suffering the penalty of that law than the 
other ? And if they are suffering the penalty 
of exscision, then it follows that no promise 
made to Abraham, and repeated by the pro- 
phets, can apply to them, for all these are 
covenant promises made to the seed of Abra-' 
ham, while they are only known as bearing 



LETTERS TO A M1LLENARJAN. 99 

the penalties they have incurred, especially 
that of excision. So that all the promises 
made to the seed of Abraham must belong, 
so far as yet unfulfilled, to that part of the 
Jews and their descendants, who obeyed 
and served Christ, together w T ith the believ- 
ing proselytes from the Grentiles, whom we 
have before proved to be the true seed of 
Abraham and heirs of the promises made to 
him — and that therefore the saying of Christ, 
i 'Ye are of your father the devil," and " I 
know the blasphemy of them that say they 
are Jews and are not," belongs to the present 
Jews. And ought we not then to beware 
lest we encourage them in that blasphemy, 
and thus become partakers of their sin ? 
Yours, &c, A. W. 



LETTER X. 

Dear Sir: — Having seen that the pre- 
sent nation or people called Jews, have for- 
feited all claim to the character or title of 
the seed of Abraham, and heirs to the pro- 
mises made to him and his seed, and that 
according to Christ and Paul, those who are 
in Christ are now the seed and heirs of 
Abraham ; it follows that whatever the pro- 
phets have said of bequests yet due to the 
seed of Abraham, they have said of true 
believers, whom Paul says, are now Abra- 
ham's heirs. It is not perceived how this 
conclusion can be avoided, if the premises 
are fairly established. 

But suppose, for the sake of trying them 
by one more test, we admit the contrary, 
and say, that the prophetic promises or le- 
gacies belong to the Jews who have rejected 
Christ, then those who obeyed him have 
forfeited them : and then, if they understood 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 101 

the prophets, they must have understood 
them as saying, These great blessings you 
will secure to yourselves and posterity if 
you remain in rebellion against Christ for 
two thousand years or more ; but if you 
obey Christ, you will lose them. May we 
not safely say, that whatever the prophets 
did teach, they did not thus encourage the 
Jews to reject Christ ? They did not give 
the blessings promised to the rebels and dis- 
inherit the friends of Christ. 

But do you ask, Can the prophecies be ex- 
plained in accordance with these views ? If 
they cannot, yet if the previous facts be 
clearly established the result, viz., that 
the promises, whatever they be, belong to 
true believers, must also follow, even though 
some of the predictions of the prophets re- 
main obscure. 

Do you say, that though this may be true 
in reference to prophetic promises, including 
legacies, yet it does not follow that it is in 
reference to mere predictions, such as we 
have of the overthrow of Sodom and Baby- 
lon, or even of the coming of Christ ? This 
is fully admitted. But such admission will 
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102 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

not secure blessings to the rebellious, nor 
are we certain that God has ever made pro- 
mises of good to those who are the enemies 
of God. When promises were made to the 
Jews, as the seed of Abraham, they were 
the people of God in distinction from all 
other nations, among whom were none of 
God's people. But now the people of God 
are found in the church, while the Jew who 
denies that Christ has come in the flesh is 
called an antichrist. Are they not all then 
the enemies of Christ ? 

But let us now, keeping the previous es- 
tablished facts in view, approach the pro- 
phets, and see how far we can understand 
them, and whether they certainly teach dif- 
ferent things, or whether they accord with 
the facts before established. 

It will be admitted, that all the predic- 
tions of the Jewish prophets, relating to the 
captivity of the Jews, as far down as their 
captivity by the Chaldeans, when they were 
to be carried to Babylon, have been fulfilled. 
If there are any of the Jewish prophets, who 
speak of the captivity of the Jews, after the 
death of Christ by the Romans, or by an 



LETTERS TO A M1LLENARIAN. 103 

other, they should be distinctly marked, we 
have not found them, and, moreover, are in- 
clined to think they cannot be found. Now 
if the Jewish prophets did not speak of any 
captivity of the Jews after Christ, the pro- 
bability would seem to be, that they spoke 
of no return from such captivity, unless 
there is strong evidence to the contrary. 

Will it not also be admitted, that when 
the prophets foretold the captivity of the ten 
tribes, they did not connect with it any pro- 
mise of their return from that captivity, as 
was the common practice when they pre- 
dicted the captivity of the Jews by the Chal- 
deans? If they did, the place where they 
did it should be distinctly marked, as we 
have not found it. 

It will also be admitted, that the prophets 
did distinctly foretell the return of the tribe 
of Judah, or, as they were then called, the 
Jews, and that as parts of the other tribe? 
had returned to them as before shown, that 
the prophets spake of them as Israel and 
Judah, and that they often spake of their 
return while they were in Babylon. 

It will also be admitted, that three times 



104 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

the prophets fixed the time when the return 
from the captivity should begin — viz. : Jer. 
29 : 10. " For thus saith the Lord, that after 
seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, 
I will visit you and perform my good word 
toward you, in causing you to return to this 
place" — 51 : 5, 6, when they are direct- 
ed to flee out of Babylon ; and also Jer. 
25 : 11, 12, " They shall serve the king of 
Babylon seventy years," &c. 

It will be admitted again, that after the 
land had enjoyed her seventy years of Sab- 
baths, that Ezra, under the direction of 
Cyrus, according to both Jeremiah and Isaiah, 
did commence this return, as recorded in 
Ezra 1:1, and onward, so as to leave no 
doubt on the mind of the Jews as to the 
period of their captivity. With this return 
the prophets speak of the coming of Christ. 
See Jer. 23: 6; 31: 13; 33: 15; and Dan. 
9 : 24, 25, fixes also the time of that event 
Does it not then follow, that when the 
prophets, after they have marked the time, 
speak of the return of the Jews from captiv- 
ity, a captivity which they had often fore- 
told, that we are to understand them as 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 105 

speaking of that return which they had 
marked, unless they plainly warn us in 
what they say, that they refer to another 
captivity and another return? This would 
surely be the way in which we would un- 
derstand other writers when speaking to the 
same people about the same events. If, then, 
the prophets have not warned us, that they 
are speaking of another captivity and an- 
other return, the time of whieh is not de- 
fined, ought we not, in fairness, to under- 
stand them as referring to that of which 
they have spoken, and the time of which 
they have marked ? 

This seems evidently to be the captivity 
to which Jeremiah refers, 29 : 14, where he 
says : u iVnd I will be found of you, saith 
the Lord, and I will turn away your cap- 
tivity, and I will gather you from all the 
nations, and from all the places whither I 
have driven you, saith the Lord, and I will 
bring you again into the place whence I 
caused you to be carried away captive. " 
That the prophet here refers to their return 
from Babylon is plain, because it was the 
language of a letter sent to the captives then 



106 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

in Babylon, and the time of the return was 
stated in the same letter, verse 10, that it 
would be after seventy years were accom- 
plished at Babylon. This is so plain that I 
believe there is no difference of opinion on 
the passage. 

Soon after this the prophet Jeremiah is 
sent with another and still more encouraging 
message to the Jews, occupying the 30th 
and 33d chapters, in which he was not only 
to tell them that they should be restored 
from their captivity, but also that they 
should remain in their own land until Christ 
should come, or the Branch. But he does not 
intimate that he spoke of another captivity 
and return, except so far as such as Mr. D, 
N. Lord and others, think they can gather it 
from obscure hints. Why then should we not 
understand him as referring to the same re- 
turn which w T as to go on till Christ's death? 
Surely this is the most natural ; while, if Mr. 
Lord's views are right, then these rich lega- 
cies are forfeited by the friends of Christ, 
and secured to his enemies. But did not 
the prophet speak of the Lord's people, while 
the present Jews are of their father the 
Devil? Yours, &o., A. W. 



LETTER XI. 

Dear Sir : — Before entering upon the in- 
quiry what legacies are yet due to the seed 
of Abraham, as now found, it may be proper 
to answer two objections that may arise in 
your mind a little more distinctly than here- 
tofore. 

I. That if the prophets did not teach the 
return of the present Jews, yet Christ did. 
If so, he spoke of those who were, according 
to his own showing, John 8 : 44, the children 
of their father the devil, and not, as they 
claimed to be, v. 33, the seed of Abraham, 
and therefore what he said of them could not 
be even explanatory of what Moses and the 
prophets foretold of the seed of Abraham, 
which seed always included, and still in- 
cludes, all true believers. The prophets 
spoke of the friends, and Christ spoke of 
the enemies of the gospel. But where has 
Christ taught that those enemies whose cap- 



108 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

tivity and dispersion he had plainly declared 
should ever be restored ? Christ says, Luke 
'21 : 24, ' There shall be great distress in the 
land and wrath among the people, and they 
shall fall by the sword and shall be led away 
^captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall 
be trodden down of the Gentiles until the 
time of the Gentiles be fulfilled.' Here 
their present captivity and sufferings are as 
plainly foretold as their captivity in Babylon 
by the prophets of the Old Testament. But 
there is not a word of what is to be their con- 
dition after the time of the Gentiles is ful- 
filled ; and, therefore, we cannot know from 
tliis that Christ does not refer to the end of the 
world ; and if not, what will be their condi- 
tion after that time ? So when Christ said 
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Mat. 23 : 39, 
° Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall 
say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name 
of the Lord.' This was said before the se- 
paration of the believer from the unbeliever, 
and while Israel was yet the people of God, 
and not to those who were after this cut off 
by the penalty of the Mosaic law, and it can- 
not, therefore, apply with certainty to those 



LETTETS TO A MILLENARIAN. 109 

who were afterward excinded,but seems in- 
tended to encourage the believing Jew. 
But if it did to unbelievers, is there a word 
about a general return there ? AVhile the 
Old Testament prophets not only declare that 
their return to their fathers' land was as cer- 
tain as the return of the sun and the moon, 
but point out the year when this return is to 
commence, and the person by whom it is to 
be effected, Christ, at most, gives us but 
a doubtful hint. Now how can we account 
for this fact, if Christ intended that the 
church should strive and pray for it ? The 
prophets of the Old Testament, from Moses 
to Maiachi, reiterated the return of Israel 
from the Babylonish captivity, at the end of 
70 years and onward to Christ, over and 
over again, in the plainest terms, to encourage 
them to pray for it as Daniel did— Dan. 9, 
and to strive for it when the time came. Why 
then did not Christ, or any of his apostles, 
tell us plainly that these excinded Jews 
would at a future period return in mass, as 
the church or to the church, and direct His 
people to strive and pray for it, if that were 
his purpose ? Nothing would have been 
10 



110 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

easier than for Christ, after he predicted 
their dispersion, to have told of their return, 
as the prophets, if that had been his purpose, 
and of his rule over them in person, but he 
never did ; and shall we venture to add this 
to his sayings, and direct the church to strive, 
and pray for it, when Christ has never plainly 
directed us to pray or strive for such a re- 
sult ? 

Those who insist that the present Jews 
will return in mass, or as a nation, ought to 
give a good reason why Christ did not more 
plainly reveal it, as the prophets of old did. 
In general, the New Testament writers are 
more plain and explicit than the Old. Why 
not in this, if the Jews as such were to re- 
turn ? Christ, in the parable of the noble- 
man^ seems to give us the true reason why 
he said nothing of their return, or our striv- 
ing to bring them back as a nation or society 
by themselves. They were to be cut off. 'But 
those mine enemies who would not that I 
should reign over them, bring hither and 
slay them before me.' 

Obj. 2. But if Christ has not predicted the 
return of Israel plainly, surely Paul has in 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. Ill 

the 11th chap, of Romans. If so, it must be 
in the 11th, 25th & 26th verses : ' Nowif the 
fall of them be the riches of the world, and the 
diminishing of them the riches of the Gren- 
tiles, how much more their fulness ? For I 
would not, brethren, that ye should be igno- 
rant of this mystery (lest ye should be wise 
in your own conceits), that blindness in part 
has happened to Israel until the fulness of 
the Grentiles be come in. And so all Israel 
shall be saved.' Now, are these predictions 
of the return of the present Jews ? If so, 
they are surely very obscure. How differ- 
ent from that of Jeremiah 29 : 10, ' For thus 
saith the Lord, that after 70 years be ac- 
complished, at Babylon, I will visit you, and 
perform my good word toward you in caus- 
ing you to return to this place ;' or Jeremiah 
23 : 3, 'I will gather the remnant of my flock 
out of all countries whither I have driven 
them, and I will bring them again to their 
fold ;' or 24 : 6, ' For I will set mine eyes on 
them for good, and I will bring them again 
to this land ;' or Ezekiel 37 : 21—25. Such 
is the clearness of the predictions of the 
prophets, relative to the return from the 



112 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

Babylonish captivity. Now if Paul intended 
to foretell the return of the present Jews 
who reject Christ, in mass, as the churoii or 
to the church, and thereby to make it ihe 
duty of the church to pray for and seek to 
hasten that event, how can we account 
for the fact that he did not, as the prophets, 
tell us plainly that it would be so, and the 
time when it would be, so that she might 
know and do her duty when the time 



came 



? 



Did the Lord intend that the church should 
pray for the return of the Jews for ages and 
generations, and never see the slightest 
answer to her prayers, or know when she 
had a right to expect it ? Not so with the 
return of the Jews from Babylon. But he 
told them plainly that they should return, 
and the very year it should commence, and 
even the person by whom it should be ef- 
fected, so that they might know how to pray 
and when to expect an answer. And they 
did pray, and were heard. — See Daniel 9. 

But let us now examine the 11th chapter 
of Romans a little more carefully, and see 
if it does clearly, or even obscurely, teach us 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 113 

that the Jews will ever return in mass as 
the church or to the church. 

The leading object of the apostle in his 
epistle to the Romans was not to show what 
would be the future destiny of the Jews, 
but to show that hereafter both Jews and 
Gentiles were to be saved by faith in Christ. 
What he says, therefore, of the future des- 
tiny of the Jews is rather incidental than 
direct, in his attempt to teach both their 
duty. 

In the first ten chapters he addresses him- 
self principally to the Jews, and speaks of the 
Gentiles in the third person, showing to the 
Jews that according to their own prophets, 
whenChrist came and fulfilled their law, there 
would no longer be any distinction kept up 
between Jew and Gentile, as before. That 
after this he only would be a Jew which 
was one inwardly, and that circumcision 
would be of the heart, in the spirit, Romans 
2 : 29; and that they were not now, nor ever 
had been, all Israel which were of Israel, 
and proves by Hosea and Isaiah, that here- 
after believing Gentiles would be largely in- 
corporated in the church of Israels and be 
10* 



114 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

fellow-heirs of the promises to Abraham, 
while many of the Jews would be cut off, 
because they rejected Christ, 9 : 24 — 27, 
apparently to soften the prejudice of the 
Jews. He then shows, 10 : 11 — 13, that 
henceforth there was to be no difference be- 
tween Jew and Greek, thus reconciling the 
Jewish converts to the reception of the Gen- 
tiles more largely into their church than be- 
fore, as their own prophets had taught 
would be the case when Christ came, and 
closes the 10th chapter with a quotation 
from Moses and Isaiah, showing that accord- 
ing to them many Gentiles were to be con- 
verted and many Jews were to be cut off. 
But after quoting Isaiah in a way that might 
seem to imply that the Jews were to be re- 
jected, and the Gentile church was to be 
substituted in their place, and to make it 
plain that they were not, he asks the 
question, 11: 1, 'I say then, hath God cast 
away his people V He then turns to the 
Gentiles, and shows them that God had not 
cast away his people Israel and substituted 
them in their place, but only received and 
incorporated the believing Gentile in the 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 115 

diminished church of Israel. That they were 
not the tree, but only branches engrafted into 
the Abrahamic tree ; that what they had of 
holiness flowed from the covenant with 
Abraham, and seems to warn them against 
the supposition and the danger of supposing 
that they were now the favorite church and 
people of Grod , by the cutting off of all the 
Jews. Not so; the Jewish church still lived 
in the believing part of it, and they were to 
be engrafted in it — and that however large 
the number of Gentile converts, they were 
still but branches, and not the root. 

In examining the question, "What does 
Paul teach in this 11th chapter in reference 
to the future destiny of Israel, it seems im- 
portant to determine to whom he refers in 
the 7th verse, by the term Israel, and by the 
relatives in verses 11, 12, 14, and 15, which 
seem to refer to the same people to whom 
Israel does in the 7th verse. Does he mean 
the nation of Israel, in distinction from the 
G-entiles, or the present unbelieving part of 
Israel in distinction from himself and other 
believers ? We think he uses it in the former 
sense, as the prophets did. To this opinion 



116 LETTERS TO A MILLENARTAN. 

we are led, first, by the fact that this seems to 
be the general meaning given to this term by 
the New Testament writers. The term Israel 
is used some thirty-five times in the New Tes- 
tament, and with the exception of its use in 
this Epistle, if it be an exception, seems al- 
ways to refer to the nation of Israel in dis- 
tinction from the G-entiles. On this subject 
you may satisfy yourself by turning to Mat. 
2 : 20 ; 8 : 10 ; 9 : 33 ; 19 : 28 ; Luke 2 
32 and 34 ; 4 : 25 and 27 ; 7:9; 22 : 30 
and John 3 : 10. Also , Acts 1 : 6 ; 2 : 22 
3: 12; 5:35; 4: 27; 5: 31; 13: 16, 17, 
24 ; 21 : 28 ; 28 : 20. In all these cases we 
think it will be admitted that the term Is- 
rael is used, as in the Old Testament, to dis- 
tinguish the circumcised Jew, or all Israel, 
from the Grentiles. 

"We now come to Paul's use of this term 
in his Epistle to the Romans, though ad- 
dressed to^ the Christians in Rome, both 
Jews and Grentiles. In this Epistle, we find 
the term ten times, viz : — chap. 9 : 6, 27, 
and 31 ; 10 : 1, 19, and 21 ; 11 : 2, 7, 25, 
and 27. Of these, we find that three times 
he uses it as quotations from the prophets, 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 117 

viz :— chap. 9 : 27 ; 10 : 21 ; 11:2. Here 
he must use it as the prophets did, as dis- 
tinguishing the whole of Israel who were 
not cut off by the penalty of their own laws, 
from all Gentiles who were not incorporated 
with Israel. Again, in chap. 9 : 31, he uses 
it in distinction from the Gentiles mentioned 
in verse 30. The Grentiles had obtained, and 
Israel had not obtained, the righteousness of 
God. So in 10 : 19. He certainly does not 
mean here to intimate that he and the other 
believing Jews had become Grentiles. 

Now if the New Testament writers, in- 
cluding Paul himself, generally used the 
term Israel to distinguish the circumcised 
Jew, both believer and unbeliever, from the 
Gentiles, then Paul would use it here to 
mean the same, unless he plainly stated that 
he did not, which he has not done. On the 
contrary, when he asks the question sug- 
gested by the quotation from Isaiah, in the 
preceding verse, " I say then, hath God cast 
away his people ?" (Israel) he answers, 
" God forbid, for I also am an Israelite." 
So, also, 2 Cor. 11 : 22 : "Are they (the 
unbelievers) Hebrews ? so am I ; are they 



118 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

Israelites? so am I" — though a baptized be- 
liever ; and so were all Jews who believed as 
much as before. Does not, then, the term 
Israel, in the 7th verse, include the whole 
nation who claimed that name, v/ithout ref- 
erence to their character ? Israel hath not 
(as a whole) attained that which he seek- 
eth for. Individuals who looked for less, 
had ; but as a nation, they had not. Is 
not this view confirmed by the term used in 
verse 12, " if the diminishing of them," 
the Israel of the 7th verse ? Now how were 
they diminished ? By cutting off the be- 
liever from the nation, the Abrahamic tree, 
or the unbeliever ? The unbeliever, surely. 
Now the relative " them," in verse 12, 
seems to refer to the same Israel as in verses 
1 and 7 ; and if Israel has been diminished 
by cutting off the unbelievers, and yet ex- 
ists, then is it not the nation or only Israel 
that now exists ? We think you must admit 
that when Israel was diminished, it was by 
cutting off the unbelievers. How else is 
she to be filled up again? and must not 
then the relative refer to the nation in 
distinction from the Gentiles ? 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 119 

We have been thus particular, because on 
the meaning of the term Israel in verse 7, 
and the relatives referring to them, much 
depends. 

Paul had repeatedly proved in this Epis- 
tle, from the prophets, that, when Christ 
came, the Gentiles were to receive the offers 
of the gospel, and accept them, while the 
Jews in general would reject them. This 
he plainly proves from Moses and Isaiah, in 
chap. 10: 19—21: " First, Moses saith, I 
will provoke you to jealousy by them that 
are no people, and by a foolish nation I will 
anger you ;" no doubt alluding to the call 
of the G-entiles. " But Esaias is very bold, 
and saith, I was found of them that sought 
me not, I was made manifest unto them 
that asked not after me;" referring, as it 
would seem, to the way in which the G-en- 
tiles would receive the truth, and be re- 
ceived of Christ. Verse 21 : " But to Is- 
rael he saith, All day long I have stretched 
forth my hand to a disobedient and gain- 
saying people ;" as though they were to be 
wholly cast off, and the G-entiles to be re- 
ceived in their place ; and so the covenant 



120 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

with Abraham was to be broken. Hence, 
to avoid this mistake, addressing himself 
now to the Gentile converts, he says, verse 
1: "I say then, hath God cast away his 
people?" Is there an end to Israel, and to 
the covenant with Abraham, and has the 
Grentile church now taken its place, into 
which the believing Jews are now to be 
merged ? To which he answers emphat- 
ically, " God forbid ; for I also am an Isra- 
elite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe 
of Benjamin," and am a living witness that 
God hath not cast away his people, nor bro- 
ken his covenant with Abraham, nor with 
David, whose house he is building up by the 
incorporation of Gentile converts, as fore- 
told by the prophets ; see Acts 15 : 13-16, 
and as I shall presently show by the figure 
of a tree. " God hath not cast away his 
people whom he foreknew." Are you not 
aware that Elijah once thought that God 
had cast away all Israel but himself? ( " But 
what saith the answer of God to him ? I 
have reserved unto myself seven thousand 
men who have not bowed the knee to the 
image of Baal," and thereby incurred the 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 121 

penalty of excision from Israel. In these 
the seed of Abraham, the nation of Israel, 
was perpetuated then, and so now the 
seed of Abraham are perpetuated in the 
elected remnant of verses 5 and 7, who have 
not incurred the penalty of excision by re- 
jecting Christ ; and these were the seed by 
sovereign choice, as that of Jacob, while 
Esau was left. But what then? Israel (as a 
whole) hath not attained that which he 
seeketh for, as all the children of Abraham 
did not. But the elected remnant had, " and 
the rest were blinded," as had been foretold 
by their own prophets. — Verse 8. 

Here, for the sake of clearness, we will 
number Israel and the relatives they in the 
11th verse, and them in the 12th, and Israel 
in the 25th : all which seem to refer to the 
same people ; also the elected of the 7th verse, 
the Grentile converts to be engrafted into the 
Jewish tree, and the returning Jew referred 
to by the " some of them" at the close of the 
14th verse, calling the whole nation or 
army of Israel one thousand, the elected 
remnant, verses 5 and 7, one hundred, the 
converts from the Grentiles five thousand, 
11 



122 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

and the Jews that repented and turned, 
verse 14, twenty. Keeping these numbers in 
view as the relative or supposed relative 
strength of each, let us examine what fol- 
lows. We have seen that Israel of verse 7 
had not obtained that which he expected, 
more than the eisrht children of Abraham. 
But the elected number, who, like the elected 
Jacob, and who were by the purpose of 
Grod,like Jacob, the heirs of promise, had. So 
that the true Israel of the new covenant con- 
tinued in them, while the rest, like Esau 
and the seven children of Abraham, were not 
counted. This he says was according to 
what God had foretold, verse 8, and onward 
to verse 11, where Paul asks again, I "say 
then have they stumbled [merely] that they 
should fall," or be diminished from one 
thousand to one hundred, when the promise 
of Grod to Abraham was, that his seed should 
be greatly increased ? To this he answers 
emphatically, "Grod forbid. But rather 
through their fall salvation is come " to five 
thousand Grentiles, who by believing in 
Christ have become the seed of Abraham 5 
as the same apostle says, Gral. 3 : 29 : "If 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 123 

ye be Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed, 
and heirs according to the promise ;" and 4 : 
28, "Now we, brethren, believers," indistinc- 
tion from unbelievers, " as Isaac was, are the 
children of promise ;" so that by this diminu- 
tion of the original Israel, as a mysterious 
sequence, five thousand Gentile converts 
were enrolled in the broken army of Israel, 
or, as Paul says, verse 17, grafted in among 
them, and thus made them much more 
numerous than before, and therefore their 
fall was not to lessen them from one 
thousand to one hundred, but to increase 
them from one thousand to five thousand one 
hundred. Verse 12. Now if the "diminishing 
of them " be such a rich blessing to the Gen- 
tiles, how much more will this enlargement of 
them be, — here called their fulness or multi- 
tude? Before, as a nation, they were one 
thousand strong, and now, though nine 
hundred had been cut off as the penalty for 
rejecting Christ, see Acts 3 : 23, yet they were 
five thousand one hundred strong. Before 
they had one hundred believers to publish 
the gospel of Christ, and now they had five 
thousand one hundred. How much more 



124 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

would this multitude do toward the conver- 
sion of the world? Paul here seems to 
show both that God had not cast off Israel, 
and how the promise that he would make 
Abraham the father of many nations, Gen. 
17 : 4, was to be fulfilled. By this enlarge- 
ment of the number and glory of Israel from 
the Gentiles, Paul hoped to lead a few of 
his Jewish kindred, in whom he felt the 
deepest interest, to repent and turn. His 
highest hope was only a few, " some of 
them," verse 12, and then adds : " For if the 
casting away of them be the reconciling of 
the world," or result in sending the gospel 
through the world, what shall the receiving 
of them, twenty, or, "some of them," be, but 
life from the dead, as the return of the prodi- 
gal to his father ? Verse 16. " For if the root 
be holy," the first hundred, who are still to be 
regarded by you Gentiles as the root and 
stock of the Jewish tree or church, " so are 
the branches, ' ' all of them, whether engrafted 
from you Gentiles, to whom I am speaking, 
or from these dead branches of Israel that 
were cut off from the Abrahamic tree. Verse 
17 — 24: And now while he warns these 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 125 

newly enrolled recruits in the army of Israel 
to beware lest they" should be elated and 
stumble and fall as the nine hundred had, 
he shows more clearly, under the figure of a 
tree, the process by which they were 
brought into the church or in covenant with 
God, not by a substitution of the Gentiles 
in place of the Jews, and a Gentile church 
formed, into which the Jewish church was 
merged, for the Jewish tree still lives in 
this elected remnant, (as it did in the seven 
thousand in the days of Elias,) into which 
the Gentile Christians are engrafted, and 
are to be, till it shall be much larger than 
before. Besides, under the new covenant 
there were to be none but living branches in 
this tree, which was not so under the old. 

Thus far, then, we see nothing like a 
direct or even implied assertion that more 
than a very few of the Jews are ever to re- 
turn to the church. 

But after all, does not Paul clearly teach 
in versus 25 and 26, that hereafter all the 
present scattered Jews are to be brought 
back and to be saved ? Let us see : verse 
25, he says, " For I would not, brethren, that 
11* 



126 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

you should be ignorant of this mystery (lest 
ye should be wise in your own conceits)," or 
too much elated — " That blindness in part 
has happened to Israel," not a partial blind- 
ness to all, but a total blindness to a large 
part of Israel, as in verse 7, the nine 
hundred, who for rejecting Christ, were cut 
off from Israel, according to the prediction 
of Moses, see Acts 3 : 23 ; and as shown by 
the figure of the tree, to which figure the 
term for, at the commencement of the verse, 
seems to refer. But how long is this blind- 
ness of a part of the Jews to last? Paul 
answers; till the fulness or multitude of the 
Gentiles be come in. Perhaps Paul means 
to say, till all the elected Gentiles be con- 
verted. That they are to remain in their 
present scattered state in all nations, to be a 
beacon of warning to the church before their 
eyes in every land, till all the Gentiles be 
come in, as the plates made of the censers 
of the two hundred and fifty princes who 
rebelled against Moses, which the Lord re- 
quired to be laid as a covering on the altar, 
were to be before the eyes of Israel as a 
warning ever after. This seems to be the 
most natural construction of verse 24. 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 127 

But what then are we to make of the 
next sentence, " And so all Israel shall be 
saved?" Does not Paul himself show its 
meaning, by the quotations which follow? He 
surely does not mean all that rejected Christ, 
for millions of them have died in unbelief. 
Nor is it probable that he means that after 
the last Grentile is converted, that then at 
once, all the unbelieving Jews, that part of 
Israel that were blinded, would be saved, 
for he generally uses the term "Israel" 
as embracing all the nation under the old 
covenant: so he seems to use it in v. 25, a 
part of whom were blinded and a part not. 
Does he not then mean, So, in this way, and 
not after this, shall all Israel be saved ? — i. e. 
so, as I have shown you under the figure of 
the tree, — by cutting off all the unbelieving 
branches and engrafting none but believers, 
and thus enforcing the truth on the mind 
of the Gentile converts, that they or their 
children would no more be spared than the 
unbelieving Jews, if they were not careful 
to live for God ? Under the old covenant, 
many were truly of Israel, who were not 
saved. But under the new covenant 



128 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

with Israel, which, Jer. 31 : 31-4, said the 
Lord would make with the house of Israel 
and the house of Judah, and under which 
Paul says, Hebrews 8 : 1,6, 8-13, we now 
live, we are told, as Paul tells us here, that all 
Israel shall be saved, and under the figure 
of the tree he shows how it will be done, 
and so in this way, all Israel shall be saved. 
Paul then brings his proofs ; as it is written, 
" There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, 
and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, 
for this is my covenant," &c. Was not this 
deliverer Christ, who, by the law of Moses, 
cut off all unbelieving Jews, and by his 
own, allowed none in but true believers, 
and so turned away all ungodliness from 
Jacob? Indeed, from the very nature of 
that covenant, as described by Jer. 31 : 
31-4, and quoted by Paul, Heb. 8, as now 
in actual operation, it would seem that no 
unbeliever could belong to the house of 
Israel, with which it is made. That we are 
now living under that covenant which Jer- 
emiah said the Lord would, at a future day, 
make with Israel and Judah, seems to be 
made plain by Paul, in his Epistle to the 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 



129 



Hebrews, for he says, 8 : 1, " Now of the 
things which we have spoken, this is the 
sum : We have such an high priest," [not 
will have] v. 6, " who is the Mediator of a 
better covenant, [not will be] which was 
established upon better promises," [not will 
be] for it had been established by Christ, 
before he left the world, and then shows 
the nature of this covenant, by quoting it 
as foretold by Jeremiah, and wherein those 
better promises consisted ; and then in 
chap. 9 : 1, and onward, speaks of the old 
covenant as past. 

Now if these views are correct, then 
Paul merely shows how, under the new 
covenant, all who are in this eovenant rela- 
tion will be saved ; and not that the people 
now calling themselves Jews are ever all 
to be saved, but rather intimates that they 
will not. 

Does not this view gain a little strength 
from the declaration of James, Acts 15 : 16, 
where he says, that the prophecy of Amos 
was fulfilled, in raising up the house of Da- 
vid by the conversion and reception to the 
church of Gentile qonverts ? 



130 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

Jeremiah had stated, u Thus saith the 
lord, Behold the days come, that I will 
make a new covenant with the house of 
Israel and the house of udah." And this 
covenant was to be so formed that all in it 
would be true believers ; and here Paul 
seems to show us in what way this would 
be done : under the figure of a tree, from 
which all the dead branches would be cut 
oft', and none but living ones would be 
grafted in. And then, v. 26, says, " And 
so in this way all Israel shall be saved." 
For this new covenant was to be with Israel, 
and then brings his proofs from the proph- 
ets, showing to both Jew and Gentile, by 
whom this was to be done, as it is written, 
" There shall come out of Zion the Deliv- 
erer, and shall turn ungodliness from Jacob." 
This Christ did by repealing the old, and 
establishing the new rules of entering, or of 
being admitted, to a covenant relation with 
him. Isaiah says the Redeemer shall come 
to Zion, while Paul says he shall come out 
of Zion. Dr. Chalmers thinks that these two 
inspired men reveal to us a glimpse of the 
same scene, at a little different, though not 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 131 

distant periods. Did he not come to Zion 
when he came into the world, or when he 
first taught ; and did he not come out of Zion 
when he had died ? For then it was that he 
established the rules of admission to cove- 
nant relation with Crod, to which Paul 
seems to refer. All which was done with Is- 
rael, for at that time there were no more Gen- 
tiles in the church than had always been. 
I would not have you understand that I 
feel very confident of the correctness of this 
exposition, but only that it seems to me 
rather more plausible, and more in accor- 
dance with the figure of the tree and PauPs 
proof, than to suppose that he means at 
some time, no one knows when, for it is not 
foretold, one class of the excinded children 
of Abraham will all be converted. 

Besides, the fall of Israel was to be the 
riches or the enriching of the Grentiles ; it 
was to lead to their extended conversion. 
Now if, as Paul says, their blindness is to 
last till the multitudes of the Grentiles be 
come in, or to the end of the world ; if these 
cut off Jews are to be, as they heretofore 
have been, to the end of the world, an evi- 



132 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

dence of the truth of the sacred scriptures, 
and a beacon of warnig of the -fearful conse- 
quences of rejecting Christ, may not this 
be a continued means, in the hands of (rod, 
of the conversion of the Gentiles ? I leave 
the answer with you. 

Yours, &c, A. W. 



LETTER XII. 

Dear Sir : — At the risk of appearing 
tedious, and of repeating often the same 
thing, I will once more call your attention 
to the prediction of Jeremiah while he 
was in Jerusalem, and while it was not yet 
destroyed, bat was soon to be. After being 
told, chap. 30 : 2, to write in a book all the 
words which the Lord had spoken unto him, 
relating to the destruction of Jerusalem, 
their captivity, and their return after 
seventy years to the land of Canaan, as 
stated chap. 29: 10, and assuring them that 
they would be greatly multiplied and blessed 
in the coming of Christ, &c, 31 : 15, he 
adds, 31 : 31 — 34, " Behold, the days come, 
saith the Lord, that I will make a new 
covenant with the house of Israel and with 
the house of Judah, not according to for 
like to] the covenant that I made with their 
fathers in the day that I took them by the 
12 



134 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

hand to bring them out of the land of 
Egypt, &c. — But this shall be the covenant 
that I will make with the house of Israel. 
After those days, saith the Lord, I will put 
my law in their inward parts and write it 
in their hearts, and will be their (rod and 
they shall be my people ; and they " (refer- 
ring again to the house of Israel, with whom 
this covenant was to be made,) " shall teach 
no more every man his neighbor, and 
every man his brother, saying, Know the 
Lord, for they" (the Israel in covenant) 
" shall all know me from the least of them to 
the greatest of them, saith the Lord." Now 
according to this description of the new cove- 
nant, it would seem that every man belong- 
ing to Israel in covenant would be a true 
christian, having the law of God written in 
his heart. In this consisted the difference, 
or a part of it, between the old and the new 
covenant. According to the old, all those 
who complied with a few of the external 
conditions of that covenant, though they 
were not converted men, were Israelites in 
covenant, and heirs to the land of Canaan, 
which was one of the legacies bequeathed in 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 135 

the first covenant, and also to the privileges 
and blessings of the service of the temple. 
But in the new none would be admitted but 
true converts, who had the law written in 
their hearts. 

Now our first inquiry is, when was this 
new covenant with Israel and Judah to be 
made, and by what instrumentality was 
this change to be effected ? Has that new 
covenant been made with Israel and the 
change been effected, or is it yet future? 
If that new covenant has been made with 
Israel and Judah, then according to the 
meaning of Jeremiah, all who are in it, and 
so belong to that Israel with which it is 
made, must know the Lord, must be true 
converts. To this view my mind inclines. 

But let us see what Paul teaches the 
Jews or Hebrews on this subject. Paul 
wrote his epistle to them about thirty years 
after the resurrection of Christ, and conse- 
quently after the ceremonial law was ended 
by its being fulfilled in Christ. 

After Paul had clearly established the 
superiority of the priesthood of Christ over 
that of the Aaronic priesthood, and said: 



136 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

chap. 7 : 22, " By so much was Jesus made 
[not will will be made,] the surety of a 
better covenant," he adds, by way of sum- 
ming up the former part of his epistle, chap. 
8 : 1 and 2, " Now of the things which we 
have spoken this is the sum : We have [not 
will have, but we have now,] such a high 
priest, who is set on the right hand of the 
throne of the Majesty in the heavens : a 
minister of the sanctuary, and of the true 
tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not 
man." Then, in showing what were the 
duties of the Aaronic priests under the law 
or old covenant, he again brings to light the 
superiority of Christ's priesthood and the 
necessity of his remove to heaven to serve 
as High Priest: " For, verse 4, if he were on 
earth he would not be a priest, seeing there 
are priests that offer gifts according to the 
law, or old covenant ;" and as Christ was not 
descended from Levi or Aaron, he could not 
be a priest under that covenant, for accord- 
ing to the law or old covenant all priests 
must descend from the tribe of Levi. 
Paul then goes on to say, verse 6: " But 
now hath he obtained a more excellent 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 137 

ministry or priesthood — [not will obtain.] 
By how much also he is [not will be,] the 
mediator of a better covenant which was 
established upon better promises" (not will 
be) ; verse 7, " For if that first covenant had 
been faultless, then should no place have 
been sought for the second." But is not 
this second and better covenant, of which 
Christ is now the priest or mediator, the 
very same new covenant which Jeremiah 
said six hundred years before was at a future 
day to be made with the house of Israel and 
Judah." Let Paul give the answer. In 
proving to the Jews the correctness of his 
position according to their own prophets, 
he quotes Jeremiah: " Behold, the days 
come, saith the Lord, when I will make a 
new covenant with the house of Israel and 
the house Judah. If the first covenant had 
been faultless, then should no place have 
been sought for the second," of which Christ 
was mediator. " For finding fault with "them, 
he saith, Behold, the days come, when I 
will make a new covenant with Israel and 
Judah." Paul then repeats the covenant 
from Jeremiah, and says of this new or 
12* 



138 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

second covenant, of which Christ is now 
mediator, that it is so formed that the heirs 
of this new covenant or testament shall not 
say one to another, as under the old, know 
the Lord — for all in it shall know the Lord, 
having the law written in their hearts. 
Thus Paul proves to the Jews that what he 
had said in reference to Christ being the 
mediator of the second covenant, was but 
what Jeremiah said would be when Christ 
came. Now if this be so, then the new 
covenant which Jeremiah said would at a 
future day be made, has been made with 
Israel and Judah, and the change effected 
by the law of Christ, and we are living 
under its benign influence. So that under 
this new covenant those who are true 
believers are accounted Israelites ; hence 
Paul says to the G-alatians, 3 : 29, " If ye be 
Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and 
heirs according to the promise :" certainly 
implying, as Paul proves in the 4th chap, of 
Gral., that if they are not Christ's then they 
are not Abraham's seed, and not heirs. 

Then to make this still more plain, that the 
second covenant to which Jeremiah refers, 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 139 

and which was to be made with Israel, 
when all Israel should know the Lord, was 
none other than the covenant of grace of 
which Christ was mediator, he adds, 
verse 13, " In that he saith, A new 
covenant, he hath made the first old" — so 
that it would vanish away. But has it 
passed away ? Paul says again, Heb. 9 ; 
1: " Then verily the first covenant had 
also [not has, for it was now done away ; 
but it had also] ordinances of divine ser- 
vice, and a worldly sanctuary." And, des- 
cribing again the service in the first tab- 
ernacle and covenant, and showing its 
inferiority, he says, verse 8: "The Holy 
Ghost this signifying, that the way into 
the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, 
while as the first tabernacle was yet stand- 
ing," &c. ; which service, he says, verse 
10, was " imposed on them until the time 
of reformation," during the continuance 
of the old covenant, the end of which, Paul 
says, had come when Christ died'; for he 
adds, verse 11 : " But Christ being come, 
an high priest of good things to come, — 12, 
by his own blood entered in once into the 



140 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

holy place, having obtained eternal redemp- 
tion for us — verse 15, and for this cause he 
is [not will be] the mediator of the new 
testament," (new covenant, or will.) But 
this new covenant, of which Christ was 
mediator, and which, as Paul proved, was 
that predicted by Jeremiah, though included 
in the covenant with Abraham, was not in 
force till after the death of Christ, as Paul 
shows, verses 16 and 17 : " For where a 
testament [or will] is, there must also, of 
necessity, be the death of the testator, for a 
testament is of force after men are dead ; 
otherwise it is of no strength at all while 
the testator liveth— verse 18, whereupon 
neither the first [covenant] testament was 
dedicated without blood ;" though that blood , 
as the covenant itself was, was only typical, 
for the testator or priest did not then die ; 
so that, though this new testament or will 
was made with Abraham and his seed, it 
did not go in force till the death of Christ 
the testator, and therefore it is called a new 
covenant or testament. Paul then carries 
on the parallel, till, chapter 10 : 9, he shows 
how Christ had taken away the first cove- 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 141 

nant or testament. " He taketh away the 
first that he might establish the second," and 
then shows again, verses 15 and 16, that 
this covenant or testament bequeathed and 
secured salvation to all the heirs. But this 
covenant — this new testament — was to be 
made with the house of Israel and the house 
of Judah, the only church or covenant 
people which Grod has ever had since the 
covenant with Abraham and his seed. Now 
since the house of Israel and Judah com- 
posed all Israel, and all in this covenant 
were to have the law written in their hearts, 
all were to be saved ; and Paul having 
proved to the Jews, that of this new cove- 
nant Christ was after his death the mediator, 
may we not learn what this same apostle 
means, when, after describing to the Ro- 
mans the operation of this new covenant 
with Israel under the figure of a tree, with 
dead branches cut off and living ones grafted 
in, he says : " And so [in this way] all Israel 
shall be saved," and follows it with a quo- 
tation from Isaiah and Jeremiah, to prove 
the same great truth, viz., that all in 
this covenant which was made with Israel, 



142 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

should be saved ; that the covenant of 
grace, or second covenant, of which Christ 
was mediator, would be just as much with 
Israel as the first ; that the church was one, 
as described in the figure of the tree ; that 
the only great change would be, that while 
the first had many unbelievers and but few 
Gentile converts in it, the latter and better 
would have no unbelievers, but great num- 
bers of G-entile converts, and all unbeliev- 
ign Jews would be cut off, or, in the lan- 
guage of Peter, be destroyed from among 
the people of God. 

Now if these views are correct, does it 
not follow that the present people calling 
themselves Jews are not now in covenant, 
and that Jeremiah has not foretold any 
future covenant to be made with them, but 
only that which has been made ? 

Does it not also follow, that all which 
Paul says — Rom. 11 — is but showing how 
the covenant with Abraham and David is 
continued with their seed, and how all 
Israel, under the new covenant, will be 
saved, and how Christ has put an end to 
the old covenant after his death, by repeal- 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 143 

ing all the laws of the first covenant and 
establishing his own, and by changing the 
sacraments to correspond with the new and 
better covenant, under which all are to have 
the law written in their hearts ? And then 
would the present Jew, who in violation of 
that repeal continues to circumcise his child 
thereby, make him a Jew any more than 
an Ishmaelite is a Jew, or a Grentile would, 
be if he should circumcise himself or his 
child, or both? 

But what then are we to understand by 
the teachings of vs. 28-31 ? We answer, 
that whatever difficulty there may be in 
understanding them, it should not lead us 
to reject what seems plain. But is there, 
after all, any more difficulty in understand- 
ing these verses according to the foregoing 
views, than if we adopt the more common 
interpretation of vs. 25 and 6 ? Keep in 
mind, if we are right, that Paul constantly 
uses the term "Israel," as in common use, 
for the descendants of Abraham, as in the 
old covenant. Then in v. 28, he says, 
" They," the Israel of the aid covenant, in 
large numbers, "are enemies for your 



144 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

sakes." They are enemies for the benefit of 
the Grentiles, as shown in vs. 11 and 12. 
Through their fall and diminution, salva- 
tion is come to the Grentiles. Their enmity 
led, in the mysterious providence of Grod, to 
the preaching of the gospel to you. But 
the other part, the election or elected rem- 
nant of v. 5, are beloved for the fathers' 
fsake, for through the covenant with them, 
they are the seed of Abraham and heirs ac- 
cording to the promise. He then adds, 
As ye Gentiles in time past did not be- 
lieve, but now have been led to believe 
through their fall, as stated v. 11, so by 
the purpose of Grod, these have now been 
left to reject Christ, as in v. 25, " That 
through your mercy, they also may obtain 
mercy," — they also may have the gospel 
preached to them. For if the preaching of 
the gospel by them to the Grentiles was a 
mercy, and led to the saving of some of the 
Grentiles, so hereafter the preaching of the 
gospel to the Jews by the Grentiles would 
be a mercy, and save a few of them. 

But why then are they so long kept in a 
rseparate state, if not that they may be ga- 
thered again ? 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 145 

We may not be able to tell more than 
why they were first called. But still, may 
it not be for a warning to all nations where 
the Bible is read, and these Jews seen in 
their present deplorable state ; of the dan- 
ger of rejecting Christ as they did, and 
thus by their fall, salvation still come to 
the Gentiles ? 

"Was it not thus used by Paul in this 
chapter, showing the Grentile converts, 
that if Grod spared not the natural branches 
which lay cut off, before their, and our eyes, 
take heed lest he also spare not thee ? Now 
if this be one object ; if their fall is thus to 
continue to contribute to the salvation of 
the G-entiles, may we not expect, that their 
present blindness and dispersion will last 
till the last Grentile convert is brought in, 
or as Paul says, v. 25, the fulness of the 
G-entiles be come in? That they will always 
stand before the eyes of the world as a 
proof of the consequence of the sin of 
rejecting Christ, just as the plates on the 
covering of the tabernacle did of the sin 
of Corah and his company in rebelling 
against Grod. These were placed before 
13 



148 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

God, in distinction from all others ; and 
this, St. Paul says, Rom. 3: 2, was their 
chief advantage. From them the Saviour 
descended, through whom Abraham was to 
be a father to many nations, and through 
whom all the nations of the earth were to 
be blessed in Abraham and his seed. All 
these legacies, we think, have been paid, 
because they were promised to God's cove- 
nant people, and because they have in 
fact had them, and because none of these 
seem to be included in the special blessings 
of the new covenant, as stated by Jer. 31 : 
31, to be made at a period then future, and 
under which we now seem to live, as 
before shown. 

But to this you will perhaps reply, that 
there are many promises made to Israel by 
the prophets relating to their return from 
captivity and their future prosperity, which 
have not yet had their fulfilment, and 
must therefore still be due to them, to be 
paid hereafter. 

This objection can only be met by an ap- 
peal to the prophecies, and to the history of 
Israel. But as these letters are merely in- 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 149 

tended as an introduction to the study of 
these prophecies, all that will here be at- 
tempted will be to refer to a few prophetic 
promises, which seem to be most full and 
to be most relied upon, to prove the future 
return of the present scattered Jews to Je- 
rusalem. Such as found Lev. 26, Deut. 
30, Isaiah 2, 11, 12, Jer. 29, 31, 32, and 
33d chapters, and Ezekiel 16, 20, 34, 36, 
and 37th chapters. 

And a very slight examination of these 
predictions, so as to show on what principle 
they are supposed to be fulfilled, is all that 
is proposed. 

But first I would remark, that if we have 
been successful in proving that the only 
seed of Abraham and heirs of the promises 
are at present true believers, then they are 
not in captivity, and so cannot now come out 
of it. 

But are the above prophetic promises ful- 
filled ? Let us see. 

The first promised return is found Lev. 

26 : 40—46. In 44, " I will not cast 

them away, to destroy them utterly, and to 

break my covenant with them." A few of 

13* 



150 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

the covenant people were to return, as they 
did from Babylon, &c, after the land had 
enjoyed her Sabbaths. But on what condi- 
tion was that return ? In verses 14 and 15 
we are told distinctly that they would go 
captive if they would not obey the ceremo- 
nial law, and verse 40, if they would con- 
fess their iniquities, &c. Was not their sin 
the violation of the ceremonial law ? and 
must we not suppose, then, that this return 
was to be before the ceremonial law was 
fulfilled and abolished by the death of 
Christ ? Does not the reference to the fact, 
verses 34, 35 and 43, that then the land 
would enjoy her Sabbaths, her rest, " Be- 
cause it did not rest in your Sabbaths when 
ye dwelt upon it," strengthen the foregoing 
view ? The sabbatical years which were 
violated were probably not more than seven- 
ty ; at most they could not have been more 
than double that number before the captivity 
in Babylon, if they had kept none. Surely 
then the Jews are not now keeping those 
violated Sabbaths, nor the land either, for 
they have long since been all kept. 

The next return spoken of to which I 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 151 

would call your attention, is found in Deut. 
30, where we have an extended account of 
their return from those fearful woes pro- 
nounced against them by Moses, chapters 
28 and 29. But what is the condition 
on which they were to be brought back 
from all the nations whither the Lord had 
scattered them ? In chapter 28 : 15 we 
are told that if they did not keep the law 
repeated by Moses that day, (the ceremo- 
nial,) that then these curses would come 
upon them ; and then we are told, chapter 
30 : 1, 2, and 10 verses, that the condi- 
tion of their return was that they should re- 
turn to their obedience of the same ceremo- 
nial law : u And it shall come to pass when 
all these things are come upon thee, the 
blessing and the curse," first their prosper- 
ity, and then their adversity, u which I 
have set before thee, and thou shalt call 
them to mind among all the nations 
whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, 
and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, 
and shalt obey his voice, according to all 
that I command thee this day, thou, and 
thy children, with all thy heart and with 



152 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

all thy soul, then the Lord thy God will 
turn thy captivity, and gather thee," &c. 
Now, since both the threatening and the 
promise depended on disobedience and obe- 
dience to the same ceremonial law, must it 
not refer to a period prior to the death of 
Christ, while that law was in force, after 
which Christ solemnly commanded all Jews 
to believe on him, and be baptized — not 
circumcised — on pain of death ? And if 
that return is yet future, must not the con- 
dition be obedience to the ceremonial law, 
or, in other words, rebellion against Christ? 
But surely you will not say that rebellion 
against Christ is the condition. Must not 
then that return have been fulfilled ? Would 
it not now be sin in a converted Jew to 
offer sacrifices as much as for any other per- 
son, and is it not so for the unconverted? 

Before entering on an examination of the 
predictions of the prophets in Canaan, it 
may be well to remember, that those who 
were sent to them before their captivity 
were sent as ministers now to urge them 
to obey the Lord, by pointing them to the 
woeful consequence of disobedience, and on 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 153 

the other hand to the rich promises yet to 
be fulfilled to them if they obeyed, includ- 
ing the certainty that they would disobey 
and suffer, repent and be brought back. 

Those who were sent just about the 
time of the first siege of Jerusalem, and 
after they were in captivity, seem to have 
been sent to encourage the believing Jews, 
by assuring them that doleful and hopeless 
as their present condition appeared, they 
should assuredly be brought back, and be 
greatly prospered and blessed, after they 
had been seventy years in captivity, and 
that the promised Saviour would yet as- 
suredly descend from them, and be a rich 
blessing to all nations, as promised to Abra- 
ham. 

Yours, &c, A. "W. 



LETTER XIV. 

Dear Sir : — Let us now turn to the 2d, 
11th j and 12th chapters of Isaiah, uttered 
more than 100 years before the Babylonish 
captivity ; and here I will only ask, does 
not this description of the church somewhat 
resemble the description which Paul gives of 
the church in his day, formed of believers, 
He b.12 : 22—24 : "But ye are come to Mount 
Zion," &c, to the end of the chapter ? But 
as no commentator has succeeded in making 
that chapter very plain, I will not attempt 
it. And may not the return spoken of 11 : 
11 & 12 refer to that return that seems to 
have taken place while Christ was upon 
earth, and spoken of Acts 2 : 5, by Peter, 
when he says, just after the death of Christ* 
"And there were dwelling at Jerusalem 
Jews, devout men, out of every nation un- 
der heaven." Had they not returned to see 
their long-promised Saviour ? It was surely 



I 

LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 155 

natural for devout Jews who were expect- 
ing the Saviour to come and reign over them 
and cause them to prosper, when they heard 
that he had actually come to return to Je- 
rusalem, as they certainly had, or they 
would not have been dwelling there ; and 
did not Micah say, 5 : 3, that it would be so 
after Christ was born ? And is it not even 
possible that the highly figurative language 
of verses 14 — 16 may intimate the manner 
in which the way was to be opened by the 
powers of Rome for their return at that 
time ? I would not say that it is so, but only 
ask, may not this return of verses 11 and 12 
have been completed at the death of Christ, 
since the prophet refers it to the time when 
Christ was on earth ? May not then this 
whole passage refer to the commencement 
and future prosperity of the Christian 
Church ? The return mentioned by Peter 
from all nations on earth was as extensive 
as the promise by Isaiah. 

Let us now pass to the examination of a 
few of the predictions of Jeremiah and Eze- 
kiel, which Millenarians think certainly pro- 
mise more than has yet been received by the 
Jews. But — 



156 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

1. First, we remark that we have found 
no prediction intimating that the ten tribes 
would be recalled from captivity, except 
those that returned and united themselves 
with the tribe of Judah. Amos seems to 
have predicted their captivity, 6 : 7, and 
perhaps 8 : 14, where he says : " They shall 
fall, and never rise up again." But he says 
not one word about any return. Isaiah 
plainly foretold the destruction of the ten 
tribes, now called Israel, by the Syrians and 
Philistians, 8 : 8 — 17, but it was followed by 
no promise that they would, as a separate 
people, ever be brought back again. This 
prediction was uttered a few years before 
the date of the event, as recorded 2 Kings, 
17 : 1 — 18. They had, by setting up idols, 
&c, as a nation, incurred the penalty of 
excision from Q-od's covenant people. Af- 
ter this they seem only known as connected 
with Judah, to which tribe remnants resort- 
ed, as recorded 2d Chronicles, 11 : 16, just 
after Jeroboam set up the golden calves, and 
15 : 8, 10, under the good reign of Asa, and 
31, under the reign of Hezekiah ; so that, 
probably, all the tribes were represented in 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 157 

the tribe of Judah, as implied when James 
addressed his epistle to the twelve tribes of 
Israel. 

2d. Our next general remark is, that all 
that was said about the Jews going into 
captivity after this seems to have referred 
to, and to have been fulfilled, when they 
were carried captive to Babylon ; no prophet 
seems to have spoken of any later captivity, 
so far as we have found. The following 
seem all to refer to that captivity, or to some- 
thing before — namely, Isaiah 3 : 1 — 26 ; 22 : 
18, 20, 25 ; 39 : 5—7. eremiah 6 : 22— 
25 ; 10 : 17, 18 ; 15 : 1—8 ; 16 : 1—13 ; 
19 : 6—15 ; 21 : 3—6 ; 25 : 9—11 ; 26 : 
6 ; 27 : 22 ; 32 : 26—29 ; 34 : 1—3 ; 41 : 2 ; 
52 : 1—34. Ezekiel 7 : 2—9 : 12 : 1—28 ; 
14 : 12—23 ; 16 : 35—43 ; 21 : 25—27. Mi- 
cah 3 : 12. These may not include all, but 
they are the most full ; and they seem all 
to have been fulfilled when the Jews went 
to Babylon as captives. If that be so, is it 
probable that these prophets ever predicted 
a return from a captivity of which they nor 
the Jews had never heard ? 

3d. "We remark thirdly, that these pro- 
14 



158 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

phets seem to have been sent to encourage 
the pious Jews, by assuring them, that de- 
plorable as their present condition was, 
yet after seventy years they would again be 
brought back to their own land. This period 
had been definitely fixed by Jeremiah ; and 
as no other time had been spoken of by any 
other prophet, must not all the Jews have 
understood them as referring to that time 
when Jeremiah or Ezekiel, who were with 
them in their captivity, spoke of their cer- 
tain return to the land of Canaan ? Besides, 
this same deliverance and return after seven- 
ty years, when Babylon was to be taken, 
was referred to, Isaiah 13: 16 — 19, compared 
with 14 : 1—4 ; 44 ; 27—45 : 1 ; and by 
Jeremiah 51 : 5, 6, 11, 28 ; and 2d Chron- 
icles 36 : 22, &c. 

In the 31st chap, of Jeremiah, 10th verse, 
we are told : " He that scattered Israel will 
gather them ;" and then, v. 22 — 26, and 35 
— 40, we have an account of that gathering. 
Now have these predictions been fulfilled to 
the extent here described ? We reply, first, 
that the description in verses 35 — 37 seems 
exactly to fall in with that of the new cove- 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 159 

nant described verses 31 — 34. Again, the 
return described in verses 22 — 30 does not 
seem to be a more extensive return than 
that which the prophet had said in his letter 
to those already in captivity in Babylon, ch. 
29 ; 10 — 14, would positively take place 
after seventy years. Now if the one has 
been fulfilled, as it must have been, may 
not the other, since they were soon to be to- 
gether in captivity in Babylon, and were to 
return together ? 

Besides, all this was to be done for the 
house of Israel and the house of Judah, 
which were then to go into captivity, in- 
cluding the whole church of Christ. But if 
this return be yet future, then these bless- 
ings are either promised to a people whom 
Christ calls the children of the Devil, or to 
the church, which is not in captivity. 

But is it said that all did not return, and, 
therefore, another return must be included ? 
We answer, that the proclamation of Cyrus 
freed all from bondage, and allowed them to 
return, "and that the promise of the Lord 
secured the return only of those who had not 
incurred the penalty of excision, w r hich was 



160 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

probably but a small number, and that the 
return might extend till the death of Christ 
(as they were never again to go into captiv-' 
ity), when they had actually returned from 
all nations — see Acts 2:5. 

If we turn to chapter 32 : 36 — 44, the same 
remarks' in substance apply. Just after re- 
iterating that the city would assuredly be 
taken and burned, and they be led captive 
to Babylon, and all hope seemed to fail to en- 
courage the few believing Jews, he repeated 
the same encouraging promise almost in the 
words of his letter to the captives, 29 : 14, 
which return he had assured them was to 
be after seventy years, and no other return 
is alluded to. Is it not then past ? If not, 
why no allusion to a future captivity and 
return ? 

Turn now to chap. 33, when the prophet 
had a second message while he was yet in 
prison. He again repeats, v. 5, the certainty 
of their being taken captives, and then v. 
6, and onward, of their return and prosper- 
ity ; but alludes to no other time than that 
which he had mentioned after 70 years, 
which time the Lord had fixed. But 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 161 

none of the prophets tell us that the return 
was to be complete before the death of 
Christ. From v. 15-18, the prophet, to 
comfort them still farther, under the dread- 
ful calamities which they were enduring and 
were to endure for a long time to come, adds, 
li But in those days," while they enjoyed the 
blessings of that return, the Lord would 
cause the " Branch of righteousness to grow 
up unto David," or in other words, that 
they should remain in their own land, till 
Christ should come of the seed of David, 
who was in a special manner promised as the 
richest legacy of the Abrahamic will, the 
richest bequest made to the seed of Abra- 
ham, and which was to be given them in 
their own land. That legacy they have 
received. Have they not all the rest they 
were to have in Canaan, or must they lose 
that by rejecting Christ to secure others ? 

Then, as if aware that he had promised 
blessings almost beyond the power of their 
belief, when they were soon all to be cap- 
tives in Babylon, the Lord directs the proph- 
et to assure them, v. 20 and onward, that 
all this is as certain as the return of 
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162 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

day and night, and that, too, while the 
priests and Levites held their places under 
the Mosaic law. If more is included in the 
last message, from v. 23-26, does it not 
belong to the Israel of the new covenant 
described by Paul ? So that all that was 
promised to Israel in Canaan may be ful- 
filled. 

In confirmation of the foregoing views, let 
it be remembered that we are repeatedly 
reminded, that so great would be the de- 
struction of life of those that were in Jeru- 
salem, and in Judea under Zedekiah, that 
comparatively only a few would escape. 
See Jer. 29: 15-19, and 44: 25-30; and 
then, when we remember that very many of 
those who escaped the sword, had probably 
incurred the penalty of excision, is it any 
wonder that the promise was fulfilled by 
the return of a few ; and are we not war- 
ranted in supposing that the prosperity to 
which the prophet so often referred, and 
which was to follow that return, had refer- 
ence to the time when, hundreds of years af- 
ter, they again increased to a great and power- 
ful nation, just as the promises to Abraham 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 163 

and his seed referred to a period long after 
he was dead ? And then there seems no spe- 
cial difficulty in supposing that all the 
bequests made to the seed of Abraham, in 
the land of Canaan, as foretold by Jeremiah, 
have been received by them, and that what 
remains is that which is promised in the 
new covenant, and to those that are in- 
cluded in that covenant. 

Yours, &c, A. W. 



LETTERXV. 

Dear Sir : — Let us now look at a few of 
the predictions of Ezekiel, and see whether 
he brings back the Jews before or after the 
death of Christ. Whether according to him, 
their return is complete, or is yet in part 
certainly future. As he began to prophesy 
after the Lord had fixed the time of their 
return from Babylon by Jeremiah, there was 
no need of his repeating that ; for surely 
so long as he spake of no future captivity, 
and no other time of their return than that 
fixed by Jeremiah, and spake to the same 
people of the return from Babylon, all 
would understand him as referring to the 
same time, as much as different ministers 
are now understood to refer to the same 
time, when they speak of the judgment day. 

We find one prediction of their return 16 : 
60-63. But here is no intimation that it 
will be after the death of Christ, or beyond 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 165 

the time specified by Jeremiah, except that 
the Grentiles will be received as fellow-heirs, 
" but not by their covenant." Then was 
it not by the new covenant of grace ? Jer. 
31:31. 

The next we notice is 20 : 33-41. Here 
seems no intimation that it was to be more 
distant than the time specified. But there 
is a strong intimation, v. 38 and 9, that the 
excinded Jews should not return. " I will 
purge out from among you the rebels, and 
them that transgress against me, and I will 
bring them forth out of the country where 
they sojourn, and they shall not enter into 
the land of Israel." Now here it seems the 
house of Israel is to be purged of the 
excinded Jews ; and yet in v. 40, immedi- 
ately following this, the prophet says that all 
the house of Israel, all of them, are to return 
and serve the Lord in the mountains of 
Israel. Does not then, the all mean, at most, 
only those who were not excinded, and not 
all who were carried captive ? And who can 
determine that these were not all brought 
back before the death of Christ ? 

In ch. 34 : 11-16, we have another pre- 



166 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

diction that the captives should be brought 
back from all the countries to which they 
had been scattered. But the Lord adds, 
11 I will destroy the fat and the strong." 
All the captives, then, are not to return, but 
the heirs not cut off. V. 23, he adds, that 
he will set one shepherd over them, a de- 
scendant of David. After their return they 
had only one ruler over them, one shepherd. 
If this refers to Christ, may it not be to the 
time he was in the flesh, and was subject to 
the laws of Moses, and before he was king ? 
For during his sojourn on earth, he seems 
only to act as prince subject to the existing 
laws, and not till after his resurrection did he 
enact laws, for his kingdom, and appoint his 
own officers to execute his laws ; so that 
there seems no certainty that all here pre- 
dicted is not fulfilled. 

In ch. 36 : 1-15, we have the prophet 
addressing the hills of Judea, saying that 
they would be very fruitful, and that th© 
Lord would multiply men upon them, even 
all the house of Israel — all not excinded ; 
and was not that promise fulfilled before 
Christ, especially during the time of the 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 167 

Maccabees? V. 21-38, we have an- 
other repetition of the promise of a general 
return. But in v. 37, he says, " I will yet 
for all this be inquired of by the house of 
Israel.' ' Showing that all this was to be 
done while the people of Grod, the praying 
people, were among the Jews, and in captiv- 
ity, and before they were separated by the 
introduction and operation of the new cove- 
nant. Has it not then been fulfilled? 

In the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, we have 
another prediction of the return of the cap- 
tives, which includes things which Mille- 
narians think have certainly not been ful- 
filled, and must therefore refer to some fu- 
ture return. But is this certainly so ? 

Let us, in examining this chapter, try to 
place ourselves in the midst of the weep- 
ing captives in Babylon, the praying people 
of Grod, not two years after the destruction 
of their temple, and while they felt all the 
bitterness of that captivity, and of the loss 
of the greater part of their friends by the 
sword, and try to listen to them saying to 
their, prophets, What is to become of us ? 
Where are now all the Lord's promises to 



168 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

our fathers to bless them, and to make 
them a blessing to all the world through 
that Saviour who had not yet come to rule 
over them ? And Jeremiah and Ezekiel are 
sent with messages of comfort to them that 
still believed in G-od. The vision of Ezekiel 
is that which is now before us. 

Standing in Babylon, where Ezekiel 
stood, let us listen to the new vision of the 
prophet, prophesying to the dry bones, 1-14, 
until there stood up an exceeding great 
army. Y. 11, he says, " These bones are 
the whole house of Israel ;" those not ex- 
cinded from the church of Israel, by hav- 
ing incurred that penalty. In reply to their 
unbelieving complaint, v. 11, saying, " Our 
bones are dried, our hope is lost, we are cut 
off for our parts/' the prophet is directed 
to say, v. 12, " Thus saith the Lord God, 
my people, I will open your graves, and 
cause you to come out of your graves, and 
bring you into the land of Israel. And ye 
shall know that I am the Lord, when I have 
opened your graves, my people, and 
brought you up out of your graves, and 
shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 169 

live, and I shall place y©u in your own land. 
Then shall ye know that I the Lord have 
spoken it, and performed it, saiththe Lord." 
Now as the time when this return was to 
commence had a few years before been defi- 
nitely fixed by Jeremiah, a colleague pro- 
phet, and was no doubt very often spoken of 
by the captives one to another, must not every 
Jew understand him as referring to that 
time, unless he referred to another, which 
he did not as yet, and he surely did not in- 
tend to deceive the Jews ? Was not all this 
fulfilled when, about fifty years after this, 
the proclamation of Cyrus, as recorded in 
the first chapter of Ezra, was issued ? But 
can the next message be so explained as to 
agree with this? Let us see : v. 15, " The 
word of the Lord came again unto me." 
It was a separate message. He had before 
assured them of their certain return to 
their own land, and now he is sent to teach 
them, that other and still richer blessings 
were still in store for them, deplorable as 
their condition now appeared. And first, by 
taking two sticks and joining them into 
one, he is to teach them that when they 
15 



170 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

should come out of captivity, all the rem- 
nants would be joined in one nation, and 
one king should rule over them, and they 
should never again be two nations, destroy- 
ing one another, as they had done before ; 
neither should they defile themselves any 
more with idols : " And they shall be my 
people, and I will be their God." Now does 
not the proclamation of Cyrus, and the re- 
turn commenced under Ezra, and the his- 
tory of the Jews from that time, to the 
death of Christ, give us reason to believe 
that this prediction has been fulfilled ? 
They were liberated by Cyrus, they com- 
menced their return under Ezra, they were 
organized in one government, and were 
never more divided, they rebuilt their tem- 
ple, grew into a great and powerful nation, 
continued in Canaan to the time of Christ, 
were never after this idolaters, as before, and 
Christ did descend from David. But let us 
not forget that the return and prosperity 
here spoken of, as if it were all in one 
year, covered a space of more than five 
hundred years, as in the promise to Abra- 
ham. So that there was time for the ful- 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 171 

filment of all, and all seems to have been 
fulfilled by the same slow process that the 
promise to give Abraham the land of Ca- 
naan was. 

The prophet now proceeds, v. 24, ' And 
David my servant [Christ] shall be king over 
them.' But as yet he does not say when or 
in what part of their history after their re- 
turn he would be king, but only that he 
would be king. The prophet continues and 
says, " And they shall have one shepherd ; 
they also shall walk in my judgments, and 
observe my statutes and do them. And they 
shall dwell in the land that I have given 
unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers 
have dwelt, and they shall dwell therein, 
even they, and their children, and their chil- 
dren's children for ever ; and my servant 
David shall be their prince for ever — and I 
will set my sanctuary in the midst of them 
for ever," &c. How long then was this 
covenant called everlasting to continue, or 
to what period, do the terms for ever and 
evermore, so often repeated in this passage, 
refer? If this can be determined, then we 
can determine whether this prediction has 



172 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

been fulfilled. If we can determine to what 
time forever refers, in any one of these ex- 
pressions, then it is probable we have a key 
by which we may determine all, for they all 
seem to refer to the same period. They 
shall dwell in the land for ever, and David 
shall be my prince for ever. I will make an 
everlasting covenant with them, and I will 
set my sanctuary in the midst of them for 
evermore. Doubtless all these terms refer 
to the same period. Can we then determine 
any one of them ? We are told in v. 24, 
that David was to be king over them, but in 
v. 25, we are told, my servant David shall 
be their prince for ever. The same prophet 
says, Ezekiel 34: 24, " I the Lord will be 
their (rod, and my servant David a prince 
among them." Now, if the prophet meant 
to make the ordinary distinction between 
king and prince, as he seems to do, by call- 
ing him king in one connexion and prince 
in another, then the time referred to by the 
term for ever, connected with his princely 
character — in v. 25 must terminate with his 
death, for it was only during his lifetime 
on earth that, as a prince, he was subject to 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 173 

the laws of the kingdom. While he was in 
this world, in a bodily form, though a great 
prince, being born heir to a great kingdom, 
he made no laws, but only explained and 
obeyed them. Being made under the law, 
he had no right to make or break laws, and 
his obedience was perfect to the laws of Moses. 
But as soon as he rose from the dead, having 
received the kingdom to which he was heir, 
he said, ' All power is given unto me in 
heaven and earth. Gro ye therefore and 
teach all nations, baptizing them in the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Grhost.' Stop no longer at the limits 
required by the laws of Moses, but go to all 
nations and baptize instead of circumcise. 
Thus virtually sending his disciples to pro- 
claim him king of his church or people, the 
house of Israel, by publishing his laws, and 
requiring all men, Jews as well as Gentiles, 
at the peril of death eternal, to obey them, 
though in doing so they must transgress the 
law s of Moses, which he thereby shows he 
has abrogated, for his kingdom is in Judea 
over the same people. He is now king, as 
the prophet said, v. 24, he would be* in 
15* 



174 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

the mountains of Israel, over the returned 
captives ; so that henceforth the subjects of 
his kingdom are to obey his laws, and he 
appoints his own officers to execute his laws ; 
the priests as such have no longer any thing 
to do in his kingdom, nor the Levite either. 

Now if, when the prophet said, "My 
servant David shall be their prince forever," 
he plainly meant, to the end of the Jewish dis- 
pensation, then does he not refer to the same 
time when he says, just before, that the re- 
turned captives should dwell in the land in 
which their fathers dwelt, forever? And, in 
verse 26, that he would set his sanctuary in 
the midst of them for evermore ? They surely 
seem all to refer to the same time ; and if 
so, then all must have been fulfilled when 
Christ died, which seems to render the 
whole passage comparatively plain. 

After this, the Jewish law having its ful- 
filment in the sacrifice of Christ, Christ 
says, " All power is given unto me in heaven 
and in earth," and once and forever abol- 
ishes the Jewish laws and preferences, by 
the establishment of his own laws, over his 
people, the same among all nations. After 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 175 

giving the necessary directions to his disci- 
ples, he ascended from the earthly to the 
heavenly Jerusalem ; from the earthly to 
the heavenly Canaan, to sit at the right 
hand of his Father, that he might be alike 
accessible to all his subjects in this world. 
He then sent the Holy Spirit to guide them 
in completing the arrangement of his laws 
and officers in his kingdom, and there he 
will rule as the son of David forever. 

Now if these views are at all admissible, 
then may not all the predictions of the re- 
turn of the Jews have been accomplished 
when Christ died, or, in other words, have 
not all the legacies of the Abrahamic will 
been paid, so far as they were to be paid in 
Canaan ? So that none are now due to the 
seed of Abraham but those included in the 
new covenant, Jer. 31 : 31, or the cov- 
enant of grace, which does not give any 
promise of preference to the present scat- 
tered Jews, either before or after conver- 
sion, nor any promise of an earthly Canaan. 
Nor does it appear to include any thing 
like a general or national conversion, and 
return to the church, more than of all the 



176 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

world, unless it can be found Rom. 11 : 
12 and 26, of which the reader must judge. 
To my own mind, I confess that these pass- 
ages seem to convey a different meaning, or 
at least do not certainly convey that mean- 
ing. 

Yours, &c, A. W. 



LETTER XVI. 

Dear Sir : — I will now bring these let- 
ters to a close, by saying that I wish you 
distinctly to understand that I do not at all 
rest the question of the return of the pre- 
sent scattered people calling themselves the 
children of Abraham to the land of Canaan, 
and Christ's reign over them there, on the 
foregoing intimations of what may be the 
meaning of certain predictions of the pro- 
phets, for I am no student of the prophets, 
but on the question, Who are the lawful 
heirs of the bequests made to the seed of 
Abraham ? This seems to be a question 
totally distinct from the question, What are 
the contents of the will ? and should surely 
be definitely settled before we look at the 
contents of the will ; for before I know 
whether I am an heir, the contents of the 
will are of little consequence to me. Indeed, 
it is always difficult to understand an ob- 



178 LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 

scure will till we know distinctly of whom 
it speaks, and so of the Abrahamic will as ex- 
po unded by the prophets. 

Again, then, we repeat, that if we have 
succeeded in showing that the present Jews 
are not the lawful heirs, but that they have 
broken their covenant and forfeited their 
heirship, then what the prophets say still 
belong to the seed of Abraham cannot at 
all be said of them, for they speak not of 
them, but of the seed, the covenant people, 
the lawful heirs ; and if we have succeeded 
in showing that according to the law of 
Moses, as explained by Peter, Christ, Paul, 
and John, true believers, wherever found, 
are the seed of Abraham and heirs of the 
promises, then whatever the prophets say 
relating to the present or future time, they 
say to them, and them only, for they always 
speak of the seed of Abraham, the covenant 
people of G-od ; so that whatever of pro- 
phetic promises are yet due to the seed of 
Abraham belong to true believers, or so it 
seems to me, for they constitute the old 
Abrahamic tree, of which there are not two, 
but one only, as ever, and form now the 



LETTERS TO A MILLENARIAN. 179 

only house of Israel and house of Judah 
in existence. Upon that seed the pro- 
phetic eye was fixed, with that house 
the new covenant was to be made, and 
was made ; from that house or tree all 
the dead branches were to be cut, and none 
but living ones to be engrafted, so that there 
could be no need of one saying to another, 
11 Know the Lord," but only of exhorting 
one another to be faithful, and to take 
warning by the multitude of that house 
who were cut off, that they fell not under 
the same or greater condemnation. And 
now will you carefully and prayerfully ex- 
amine the question of heirship, without mix- 
ing it up and obscuring it with supposed 
meanings of prophetic visions ? 

And may the Lord lead both you and me 
to such an understanding of this as shall 
enable us to perform our duty in carrying 
forward the revealed purposes of Grod re- 
specting His Church and its appropriate 
duties to all unbelievers, no matter by what 
name they are called. 

Yours, &c, A. "W\ 



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